One of the most interesting social phenomena of Hip-Hop is the ability to transmogrify words in context. (Yes, I just wanted to use a new word I picked up right there. I’m so showing off.) . As evidence of this occurrence, I offer you two words that are wildly different from their original intent today, bitch and nigga (-er, -uh, nicca, nucca).
In first looking at the word “bitch,” while the social stigma of being called a bitch will probably never become a compliment for most men (no need to elaborate here), it seems to have taken on a different connotation for a lot of young “urban” women and effeminate gay men. It has become a compliment, a term of endearment and apparently a means of empowerment. In asking one of my effeminate male friends why he uses the word “bitch” as a compliment, he stated that it was their (referring to effeminate gay men and women) way of saying that someone was “fierce” and “doing their thing” or “putting it down” as it were. If we look at Hip-Hop culture, really music as a whole if you want to look at Alanis Morrisette, the 90’s, the decade of Hip-Hop’s enthronement, took “bitch” to an entirely different level. Progressively, “bitch” has worked its way into public acceptability, even on network television.
Hip-Hop/R&B female heavyweights like Beyonce, Eve, Trina, Lil Kim, and Foxy Brown have all referred to themselves as bitches. The contextual meaning of bitch became that of a domineering woman who was in a take charge mode. It appeared to be an attempt by women to flip the connotation from that which left them powerless to that which made them powerful. The theory being that if they, being women, accept the name then they can give shape to it via their actions, which to some extent is true. However, as women moved up the ladder in industry, that success came very, very slowly in the Hip-Hop Community and that power play that women tried to make didn’t supplant the original subservient, second-class, needy, dependent aspersions of a bitch, it just simply made room as subcategory.
Maybe, embracing the word “bitch” is a way in which females have decided to take destiny into their own hands and create their own definition. Has anyone else noticed how progressively masculine females (through musical representation) have gotten lately? Everyone was “bossy” but now they’re all “divas” a.k.a female versions of a hustler. Do women feel as though they need to put on this persona to gain the respect of men and to place themselves on equal footing or is this just simply where women are at right now?
Hip-Hop, really the music industry at large, is heavily patriarchal and masculine. It caters almost exclusively to the needs, interests, and wants of its male consumers. Often, the only reason that some of the softer songs get played is because there’s this need to appease women, instead of making them equal partners. In subscribing to the masculine definition of bitch, you have to wonder how women devolved from being women to animals. Here is where I would like to call upon the lyrical genius of Too Short in his song, “You Nasty” and NWA in "A Bitch is a Bitch":
Maybe, embracing the word “bitch” is a way in which females have decided to take destiny into their own hands and create their own definition. Has anyone else noticed how progressively masculine females (through musical representation) have gotten lately? Everyone was “bossy” but now they’re all “divas” a.k.a female versions of a hustler. Do women feel as though they need to put on this persona to gain the respect of men and to place themselves on equal footing or is this just simply where women are at right now?
Hip-Hop, really the music industry at large, is heavily patriarchal and masculine. It caters almost exclusively to the needs, interests, and wants of its male consumers. Often, the only reason that some of the softer songs get played is because there’s this need to appease women, instead of making them equal partners. In subscribing to the masculine definition of bitch, you have to wonder how women devolved from being women to animals. Here is where I would like to call upon the lyrical genius of Too Short in his song, “You Nasty” and NWA in "A Bitch is a Bitch":
You Nasty
A lot of women like to be called a bitch,
I'll break it down so you understand all of it
I always thought I was an educator,
I might not love her, but I never hate her…
Now yall wanna get mad at me,
For talkin about another young, nasty freak
Its life, its not a major catastrophe,
You aint a ho cuz you givin up the ass for free, you nasty
I know why yall mad at me, I aint break your heart girl (you nasty)
Man, these bitches trippin (you nasty)
Too many tight lil dresses with no panties on,
Too many females tryin to take a man home
Where your mommy and your daddy at?
Just because a player got a cadillac
You wanna lay in the back, with your face in his lap,
All you gotta do is taste that
You get to ride, get used all the time,
I aint made the situation I just made the rhyme
Adapt to my surroundings, look around
Nothin but pimps, tricks, and hookers found
In the Town, if you aint one you the other,
I aint fooled, what you gonna do to a brother
Never took the time to explain myself,
But keepin it real is somethin I can’t help
I know some real women, I know some real hoes,
And male-bashing songs, I don’t feel those…
If it wasn't for the groupies or for the oral sex they gave me,
I'd treat you all like ladies
Im just a victim of society,
Look me in my eyes and dont lie to me
You ever had a one-night stand and go to church the next day?
A full night of play, wake up and pray
Wishin you could stay, but you caint'
Oh you a good girl today? You aint no saint, you nasty
A Bitch Is A Bitch
[Narrator]
Let's describe a certain female. A female with the disease of character
and attitude. If you will a snob. However in a view of NWA...
[Ice Cube]
A bitch is a bitch (bitch)
So if I'm poor or rich (word up)
I talk in the exact same pitch
Now the title bitch don't apply to all women
But all women have a little bitch in 'em (yeah)
It's like a disease that's plagues their character
Takin' the women of America (yeah)
And it starts with a letter B
It makes a girl like that think she better than me (bitch)
See, some get mad and some just bury
But, yo, if the shoe fits wear it (wear it)
It makes 'em go deaf in the ear
That's why when you say 'hi' she won't say 'hi'
Are you the kind that think you're too damn fly?
Bitch eat shit 'n die (ha, ha)
Ice cube comin' at you at crazy pitch
(Why?) I think a bitch is a bitch
It seems like in today’s dialogue about the word “bitch” the female role in creating that standard is often ignored. Every female is not a lady. I will repeat, EVERY FEMALE IS NOT A LADY. I will speak for myself in saying that I know some “women” who I will never call a bitch, but exhibit “bitch-esque” behavior. Understandably, many women who exhibit “bitch-esque” behavior or “ho-like” tendencies have their reasons for not having more propriety, such as never being given a real example of how a real lady acts, abuse, and social manipulation. Behavior is conditioned by experience and expectations. To improve the behavior of men and women in the “Hip-Hop” community, we must first change the expectations which will help to transform their experiences. What Too Short points to here is the dichotomy of personal expectations and social expectations of young women. There is high pressure to be promiscuous, to “give it up”; but, I do believe that a real gentleman will wait patiently for you to be ready.
Somehow this generation, across racial spectra, has become desensitized to the use of the word nigger/nigga (and its derivatives). There are a couple of different ways to look at this phenomenon. Firstly, one could see it as an achievement, as a milestone in race relations. The fact that the troublesome, derogatory word nigga is has done a 180 and been transformed into a word of solidarity and brotherhood. I find that hard to believe because the word greatly bothers me intellectually and I struggle and wrestle with it socially. Before I came to Howard, I was so dead-set against the word nigga I completely frowned upon anyone who incorporated it into their regular lexicon. However, once I got here, especially freshman year, I found myself saying it over and over and over again. It almost began to feel natural which the scary part.My usage of the word, I believe, came from the fact that I was surrounded by it. It was omnipresent and engulfing. So eventually, I succumbed to it. Once I noticed it though and realized how much of an invasive plant this word had become in my subconscious, I did what any good horticulturalist would do, root it out. In my journey to understand, reduce, and then eliminate the word from vocabulary I had to ask myself why. Why was this world so villainous and hateful and spiteful? A quick journey through Black history showed me that. The shame, the degradation, the blood, the tears, and the anguish infused into this word through centuries of disenfranchisement and displacement was enough to make me even a generation removed feel the sting of the word.
One of the reasons that I more adamantly object to the word than do a lot of other African-Americans is because in my family time has marched more slowly. My parents are both around 60 years old. So they were really beginning to come of age during the height of the Civil Rights struggle. Their direct connection with this has injected, maybe even supercharged me with an “anti-nigga” agenda. However, what I realize now is that for most African-Americans there is a generation sandwiched in between the time that my parents came of age and when I was born, the children of the late 60’s/early 70’s. These children have helped progress the march of time in the inevitable healing process, more than likely as a backlash to the hypersensitivity of their parents. Every generation removed from the Civil Rights era dilutes the potency of the racist doctrine, moving us closer to the eventual “mountaintop” of which King so eloquently spoke in his “I Have A Dream” Speech. I think this is what John McWhorter is trying to get at in his book, Losing the Race.Also worth noting is the cultural divide that occurred in the 80’s as those late 60s/early 70s kids were trying to make sense of the world. We lost an element of historical context and understanding as to what we, as a people, had been through. That’s part of what makes Hip-Hop authentic and non-authentic. It’s derived from an inability to understand the complexity of the system that was at work around them due to the personal lack of historical context beyond pop culture, which, long story short, is a result of the absentee-ism of strong adult role models. Here we are again with “kids raising kids”. Nigga is a word that comes with a social responsibility few of us are willing to adopt and uphold. I think if you are bold enough to use the word nigga you have to do so with the understanding of what it has represented over time. The next book I’m going to buy is going to be Nigger by Randall Kennedy. I’ve been meaning to buy it but writing this has charged me and my wallet to do something. But anyway, nigga just can’t be hip lingo and a cool word that “don’t mean nothin’”. When Tupac coined the acronym “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished”, did we really buy into that or just go along with nigga as a means of global self-deprecation?
It’s funny how this one word has come so far. When the NAACP decided to bury the word “nigga”, I shook my head. The Last Poets put my thoughts down best on Nas’ Untitled (Nigger) album on “Project Roach".
“It is absolutely silly and unproductive to have a funeral for the word nigger, when the actions continue. We need to have a movement to resurrect brothers and sisters, not a funeral for niggers. ‘Cause niggers don’t die”
Nas’ Untitled album expresses the conflicting social morays and expectations between the “hood” and the rest of the world. It’s really more so a lesson in culture clash. I listened to the album and then I read the lyrics to each song. He never really offers a clear picture on his feelings about the word. It’s more of a denotative vs. connotative analysis of what being a nigger/nigga means. Consciously or subconsciously, that’s something I think every Black person struggles with. Because defensively, I think a lot of people cling to their “nigganess” once it comes under attack, yet they know that it is at times very self-destructive. And no matter how you want to articulate late it, “nigganess” is one of undergirdings of “Blackness.” We cannot continue to intellectually disassociate the two. That only causes alienation and more hostility. Do we really have time for that? Ohh, and no matter what your race is, I will never endorse the use of the word “nigga”; however, if that’s what you choose to self-identify as, I’m not going to hate on that but I would caution you to understand the weight of that word before you pick it up.What I do often wonder to myself is how will the story of "Hip-Hop" be told to this generation's children? Will it be a footnote or a chapter on its own? I think what we have seen is that this generation, my generation, has really begun to take up the mantle that was apparently lost 40 years ago. There is a culture change afoot. With Hip-Hop being as constantly evolutionary as it is, when will the positivity publicly put towards Barack Obama be translated into positivity privately in our homes and neighborhoods and communities? Hip-hop has a big mouth; but, can it back it up?
