Hip-hop is a very popular culture right now in the twenty first century. Who wouldn’t like when we have rappers like Wale, Big Sean and other famous rapper? Even though hip-hop culture is famous, there are some things that need to be fixed. There are so many issues that the hip-hop culture can influence the public on in today’s society. There is misogyny, violence, consumerism, etc. If you ask someone what do we need to do to fix hip-hop culture? They would probably name all the issues I named earlier on in my paper. Not too many people would name homophobia though. Homophobia plays an important role in hip-hop. The question is how does the hip-hop culture influence homophobia? Hip hop promotes homophobia by focusing of the major part of hyper- masculinity. Another thing would be that hip hop promotes misogynistic acts towards the female population. The last would be the homophobic phrases that hip hop artist use such as “No Homo”.

            One of the rappers who created one of these  controversial event would be Lil B. Lil B is a rapper who’s music is almost mainstream. Before the new release of his CD, he told the public that it will be his most controversial CD he probably will ever make. For a couple of weeks, he kept the fans waiting, building up the suspense. The name of his album shocked everyone. He even got death threats from releasing this CD. The name of his new album was “I’m Gay”. The artist Lil B makes it clear that he’s not a homosexual rather he was just making a point. Lil B tells us that the whole point of his statement was to show that it doesn’t matter if you’re homosexual, just be happy with yourself.  The way he planned to show this is by using derogatory words that target homosexuals and use them as everyday words. One of his songs is called “I’m a queen”. With this CD, he wanted to show his support to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation otherwise known as GLAAD (mtv).

            What made this a controversial event is the fact that he was the first to make such a bold statement in the hip-hop culture. This culture has high rates of hyper-masculinity. If a rapper is seen as soft or sweet, then they’re considered a homosexual themselves. Because of the abundance of hyper-masculinity in the hip-hop culture, it’s a surprise that Lil B had the guts to make a CD called “I’m Gay”. This makes him the first rapper to come out with a CD that mentions anything about homosexuality. What really makes this event so controversial is that he was willing to bring up a topic people would not dare bring up. Lil B’s efforts for his CD to make aware of the LGBT community actually backlashed on him by receiving threats over the CD.

            Homosexuality is a bad omen in the hip-hop Culture. Rappers are scared of any signs of homophobia that might come up due to the fact that so many people don’t like it. If you ask some rappers about homophobia, they would completely avoid the answer. In a YouTube video, DMX is being interviewed by XXLmag.com. The interviewer was explaining that music today is about who the artist is as a person rather than just music. He then goes on to tell him that a rapper went as far as to name their album “I’m Gay”. DMX shocked ask, “Are you serious”. The interviewer then tells him the rapper name was Lil B. DMX the goes on the say “Lil B****”. Another rapper named The Game was interviewed by VLADTV. The interviewer asked him what he thought about Lil B releasing a CD called “I’m Gay”. The Game responded with, “He’s a man fan”. When he was asked to explain it, he said it was a nice way to call him gay without him saying he was gay. Even though Lil B got a lot of negative feedback on his statement there was also a couple of good ones too. Lupe Fiasco agreed with Lil B ideology. He writes that the CD could have been a cultural and social death sentence and it showed what it took for Lil B to pull this stunt.

how does the hip-hop culture influence homophobia?

Hyper masculinity is a way for rappers to ensure their heterosexuality to people around them. One rapper name Busta Rhymes, is considered the most hyper masculine rappers that we know today in the hip hop culture.   In the documentary "Beyond Beats and Rhymes", Busta Rhymes wouldn't speak on the subject of homophobia in the hip hop culture. Rhymes reason for his apathy towards the subject was the fact that his culture (hip hop) does not condone homosexuality in any way. This is one of the reason why Busta Rhymes is probably very hyper-masculine. Busta Rhymes went to a restaurant that was next to a gay club. In the restaurant there was a large population of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community in it. One of Busta Rhymes fans tapped him on the shoulder, before the fan can get a word out word out Rhymes asked why was he touching him. The fan was pushed by Rhymes, and then pushed away by his security guards. When Rhymes sit back down he then whispers to one of his guards that he hated fucking faggots. Behaviors like this show the public that it's okay for rappers to believe that homosexuals are inferior to them. As long as hyper- masculinity exist, homophobia will coexist with it. As long as rappers consider homosexuals inferior to them, the hip hop society will also think so too. Homophobia isn’t only promoted by hyper masculinity but also Misogyny.

Misogyny is another way for rappers to promote homophobia in hip hop culture itself. Misogyny is where men  objectify, and exploit women and try to normalize it as much as possible(Wikipedia). In “Beyond Beats and Rhymes”, there was a chapter called give me your bone marrow. In this chapter of the documentary, rapper Nelly went to Spellman on all women college to collect bone marrow for his chariot event. When the rapper Nelly got there, he was not greeted by friendly people. The women at Spellman College were upset at a video that Nelly decided to do. The video objectified, and portrayed women in the worst way yet. The name of the video that upset these women was called “Tip Drill”. In this video it showed Nelly and his friends surrounded by whole bunch of women. These women in the video had very little or no clothes at all. At the end of the video Nelly took his credit card and swiped it down her back side. This event at Spellman College creates a controversy that would not easily be forgotten.

This shows us that misogyny is also a problem in the hip hop culture today. Misogyny gives a image that if you don’t have a lot of women, then you would be considered sweet or gay. In this music video, they show us that rapper is supposed to have multiple women to himself. This image is being brain washed into our children brains. Monogamy is no longer the importance in today’s society. Now that men are worried about is how many women can he juggle around. As long as society keeps thinking like this, homophobia will always exist. Misogyny is a way for society to assume what the male role model is. If you can’t fill those shoes, then you are not a heterosexual due to the fact that hyper masculinity also promotes misogyny. These two factors is what keeps people in hip-hop from being open minded. As long as the hip hop society remain closed minded, these two issues in hip hop will never be solved.

The last issue is some of the homophobic phrases that rappers use. IN hip hop today, artist use phrases such as “No Homo” or “Pause”. In the song “Run This Town” by Jay Z, he says “It’s crazy how you can go from being Joe Blow/ To everybody on your dick, no homo” (lyricsreg). Lil Wayne song, “Back on My Grizzy” says, “Listen ma, I don’t know karate, but after the brain, I kick you out/ You niggas suck like Tony Romo, no homo”(lyricsmode). The phrase, “No Homo” is used when a rapper wants to use a statement that might question their sexuality or will question their sexuality. This gives rappers the right to say almost anything they want to say almost anything how and where they want to say it. The phrase “No Homo” is so popular today that almost everybody uses it.

The phrase no homo is used as a defense of anyone’s who emasculated. The phrase “No Homo” makes you asks what is considered inadvertently gay and what is considered non masculine. People, who use the phrase “no Homo”, struggle with identity expression. The reason why they struggle with identity expression is the fact the reason I stated earlier, what is considered inadvertently gay? If you don’t know what inadvertently gay is, then you can’t confirm the identity that you want to express. Joshua Brown tells us that femiphobia is one of the reasons why people us “No Homo”.

spread the word "No H8"

On November 4, 2008, Proposition eight was passed in the state of California. Proposition eight banned the right for same sex marriage. This caused a lot of protest against the state legislature. The "No H8" campaign created a way for people to protest in silence photographically. These photos feature men and women with piece of duct tape over their mouths with the words "No H8" painted on one check in protest.  The “No H8” campaign became popular through Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks and blogs. Later on the “No H8” foundation had over 20,000 faces. This campaign started with portraits of everyday people to politicians, military personal, celebrities and many other groups of people.This campaign continues to grow at an exponential rate.

Even though homophobia plays a big part in the hip hop culture today, not all of hip hop itself is homophobic. Hip hop celebrities such as Trina, Russell Simmons, Angela Simmons, Vanessa Simmons and D.M.C. showed there support towards the "No H8" campaign. Celebrities that have some influence in the hip hop culture have also joined the “No H8” campaign D.M.C. is one of the most famous hip hop pioneers. D.M.C is known for the group Run-D.M.C . Their band was the main reason how the hip hop culture came to be. Russell Simmons and his two nieces (Angela Simmons and Vanessa Simmons), chose to stand up for the right of same sex marriage also by showing their support to "No H8" campaign with their uncle. Russell Simmons is known in the hip hop culture by his entrepreneurship of clothes and shoes and many other things. If more influential hip hop artist would join this campaign, then there would be less homophobia in the hip hop society today.  If more of the influential hip hop celebrities encourage same sex marriage, then maybe one day hip hop itself would be more welcoming to homosexuality. .

             

my reflection of English 1060

In the beginning of English 1060, we started to learn to come up with the research inquiry. In the portion of the class we to come up with what subject we wanted to talk about in the hip hop culture. Once we figured out what we wanted to talk about we had to form a question that we can answer with argument. Then we revised them so we can see if we can really answer these questions with the research we got off the internet, if not then we reworded so we can answer it. If you was able to answer the question, then you might have had another question the made me change my research inquiry. The way we figure out what out what topic we wanted to do was doing the quick and dirty research assignment we did in class. Once we did our quick and dirty research, we looked for creditable sources.

During this section of the class we looked for source that dealt with our topics and more. We then found sources different types of source such as journals, articles, books. We learned that even though journals have good information, they can have different outlook of the subject. An example of this would be the sociologist talking about the LGBT. The sociologist would worry about how the LGBT community affects the population rather than psychologist who wants to know what LGBT person might be thinking. These types of sources can be helpful when you piece them together to get a better insight of what you trying to prove. Once we found our resource we got them ready to make an annotated bibliography.

In the annotated bibliographies, we w used the sources that we would use for the paper we were about write.  In the bibliography, we gave a detailed description of all our sources. In these bibliographies, they should give a person a very good explanation of what they might read if they are interested in that specific source. Not only should they give you a detailed description but you on though about what you think about the source yourself. Once we did the annotated bibliography, we started working on our research paper.

On Our research paper we started with learning to cite sources. The first citation we learned how to do was internal citations. An internal citation helps the reader find where you got your information from while their reading your paper.  After learning internal citations, we learned how to do a work cited page. This helps your paper look more creditable. It also helps the reader with knowing where you got some of your work from too.  Once we finished that we talked about how to write a detailed description of what event you chose to write about. In class we did a exercise where we had to describe what we seen on an album cover. They showed us what our rich description should look like. Once we finished our rich description, we learned how to write core paragraphs. These paragraphs are the most important part of the paper. These paragraphs present the evidence that you want to show your reader.

Work Cited List

 

Brown, Joshua R. "No Homo." Journal of Homosexuality. Academic Search Complete. Web. 30   Apr.        2012

Kantor, Martin. Homophobia: Description, Development, and Dynamics of Gay Bashing.                        Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. Print

Kantor, Martin. Homophobia: The State of Sexual Bigotry Today. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009.                 Print.

"Lyrics." , Song – Mode.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.lyricsmode.com/>.

"LyricsReg.com." Lyrics. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.lyricsreg.com/>.

Cannick, Jasmyne, “Hip Hop’s Homophobia And Black America’s Silence About It. “Lesbian      News         31.11(2006): 31. Academic Search Complete. Web 8 Feb. 2012

Markman, Rob. “Lil B Drops I’m Gay: The Based God avoids mentioning                                                     homosexuality altogether on his latest release, despite controversial title”. Mtv music.              Web. 30 june 2011.< http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1666668/lil-b-im-gay.jhtml>

NOH8 Campaign." NOH8 Campaign. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. <http://www.noh8campaign.com/>.