In a Hip-Hop culture where women are often lyrically degraded, and sexually exploited, it’s rare seeing male artists speaking out against it all. Though, if you’re familiar with Lupe Fiasco’s past projects, you’d see that this is nothing new. You can always count on Lupe Fiasco to give you a different point of view, that doesn’t always go with the grain of mainstream trends.
In June of 2012, Lupe Fiasco released a song titled “Bitch Bad” expressing how our culture has adapted to the derogatory term into something we call women. In the dictionary, the term can be commonly defined as a female dog, but in the urban dictionary the term can mean a variety of things and “A woman” being one of them.
In the song Lupe Fiasco addresses the
issue of younger males hearing their mothers and, older women singing along to
the very songs that downgrade women. As a result of hearing the women of his
life singing these lyrics, the term suddenly becomes something acceptable. As
Lupe says it, the young man will then “skew respect for dishonor”.
Fiasco’s second verse addresses young
women growing up thinking the term is appropriate. He paints a picture of a
group of little girls surfing the uncensored Internet, with no supervision. The
young girls view a music video, and the lyrics are similar to the one played in
the car by the young mans mother. Aside from the derogatory term, the girls see
a woman dancing with little to no clothing on. Impressed by the attention
received from the man in the music video, the young girls will try and imitate
her behavior. This verse shows the process of how young girls grow up listening
to the word, and then after seeing the video they now have a clear definition
of what a “Bad Bitch” is according to society.
In Fiasco’s third verse he shows how the
generation of once little boys and girls will one day meet. The young girl is a
mere reflection of the girls on the television she has seen throughout her
life, and she flaunts her body to the now young man in an attempt to get his
attention. However, the young man has grown an association of dishonor with how
the young woman is portraying herself; through comparison to his mother.
Lastly, throughout the music video Fiasco
shows images of black facing, which has struck up major controversy to audience
members and spectators. Though I feel Fiasco is making a strategic connection
between the humiliation of black facing and how our culture is actually acting.
Lupe Fiasco then ends the music video with the actors taking off the black
make-up, which I feel is a call for our community to wake up and change their
ways.
Overall, this was a great approach to
helping people realize the bad connotations that come along with the word.
Keep the content filled music coming Lupe
Fiasco “Good Vibes Music” is behind you.
