Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
99 Problems But a Bitch Ain't One
Posted by Occam on 5 November 2009 - 7:19pm.
Caught Jay Z (is that right?) on Jools this week. Call me a prim and sheltered old maid, but WTF? Doesn't anybody find this kind of derogatory labelling just a little bit troubling?
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I think it depends on how one 'reads' the artist in question...
Take these lyrics from Little T&A by The Rolling Stones...
She's my little rock 'n' roll
My tits and ass with soul baby
She's my little rock 'n' roll
You got to shock them, show them
She's my little rock 'n' roll
She got a feeling to know, baby
She's my little rock 'n' roll
Ah, the little bitch got soul
Now they aren't exactly PC, but I don't get the impression that Keef hates women despite singing those words.
my god.
that is shit, never mind not PC, it's just effin awful.
Incidentally, my hometown local paper is the T&A (Telegraph and Argus) never made that connection before.
Well they aren't Cole Porter-esque, I grant you...
but they do sound quite rock n' roll when coming out of Keef's gob.
And let's not forget...
...that in 1971 no-one batted an eyelid when Mick Jagger went on Top Of The Pops and sang about the delights of sex with one's slave woman in a rather excited state.
Or that just seven years later he took the time out to remind us that "Black Girls just wanna get f**ked all night", which probably makes slave-rape less of a bum deal than we might have previously imagined.
Blimey; he makes Jimmy Carr look like Joe Pasquale.
And I forgot...
the thinly veiled misogyny that underpins the lyrics "who wants yesterday's papers", "you're obsolete, my baby", "she's under my thumb" (I'm sure there's more, much worse).
I think we might need to stop making people like Mr Jagger knights of the realm before we diss Mr Z fo' illin', however irksome some of his lyrics might appear.
Found this cover version
http://www.secondhandsongs.com/song/53217
deliciously subversive, myself, but others' mileage may vary
Midnight Rambler
was not one of the pinnacles of feminist discourse, either...
Yebbut
That was 1981. The past had different sensibilities and sensitivities. You kind of forgive or at least understand people brought up in different eras - particularly for lyrics written 30 years ago.
Also, he's not labelling the whole sex 'bitches' - arguably he could easily be describing this particular woman as having bitch-like qualities - still sexist I grant you, but it's not quite 'men and bitches' is it.
This being 2009, I thought this kind of thing ceased to be ok a long while though - no?
Language of the street?
I don't pretend to understand it, but should one take into account Mr.Z's African-American roots & the hip-hop culture from whence he stems? Is he not simply reflecting how a section of society expresses themselves?
Was just thinking something similar,
and if we are excusing one lot of misogyny as acceptable in the morals and standards of the time, then surely we have to consider what is acceptable in hip-hop / urban black American culture today.
Indeed.
I'd never seek to excuse it.
But rap is in an interesting position, in that it comments on, and is integral to real, everyday, raw language. We may not like it, we may find it unacceptable, but that is where it comes from. It draws its authenticity from being true to the culture it reflects.
An interesting discussion.
Interestingly,
I think the quality of the tune is key too - I sing along with 99 problems because it is catchy, and the same holds true for a lot of rock music too. But where the music is unlistenable dross, the misogyny (and homophobia/ racism/ etc) is somehow more noticeable or offensive or less 'excusable'.
Male friends of mine were surprised a few months ago when I bought Straight Outta Compton - but as I explained to them if I only listened to music that was completely in line with my strong feminist principles I would be left with a bit of Riot Grrl and not much else. And of course, this extends into all areas of popular culture/ media.
Straight Outta Compton
There's a lovely acoustic version of this by Nina Gordon (ex Veruca Salt)
Oh yes
I've heard this before (possibly via this very site) and I love it.
Oh no
sorry but that's awful.
I like folk music and she's got a nice voice, but its ponderously slow, lacks little in the way of tune and is...
a white girl singing a song about the rage of black men.
I dunno if its ironic or its heartfelt but either way I am uncomfortable when white people use the world nigger. Full stop. I'm not saying the word can't be used but it needs to be extremely considered.
I'm not mad keen on NWA they are a bit too misogynistic and pro killing people etc... for me to be totally down with but f**k the police and straight outa compton are legitimately rageful and genuine to be almost acceptable to me.
That Nina Gordon - NOT ACCEPTABLE.
And more importantly not good to listen to.
obviously we disagree
I'm interested in your phrase "legitimately rageful".
What Nina Gordon's version did for me was make me realise this is a song, told in character. Just the same as "Hey Joe" - did we really think that Tim Rose or Jimi Hendrix were literally going to shoot their women down ?
During the "Cop Killer" furore, Ice-T made the point that lots of white singer-songwriters kill people in their songs but that seems OK. The Byrds sang positively about Pretty Boy Floyd, Eric Clapton sang "I Shot The Sheriff". Johnny Cash didn't literally shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.
I don't think that all of NWA were actual gang-banging cop-killing Bad Men - and sometimes the craft of writing raps and making the records they made gets overlooked.
I'm certainly with you on cautious use of the N-word, but as it is an important part of the lyric, I think it belongs here.
i dunno if we disagree that much
cos I am totally with you (and Ice T) on the character element of hip hop and violence, etc... I don't have any problem whatsoever with songs about murder and rage by anyone black, white whatever... I think its in the message of the song.
For me the message of a lot of NWA while understandable is ultimately one I find hard to get behind, the same goes for some murder ballads by white people. I think its about whether its about humans or not... some songs dehumanise victims, I'm not too keen on those, while other humanise murderers... and I am keen on them.
It's a fine line and its ultimately a subjective decision and I can be swayed often by arguments for or against these things...
that said NWA had a justifiable rage that is not just coming from the characters they write but from the experiences that they had.
I just find that song really rubbish to listen to and I just find it really odd to hear a white women singing those lyrics. I find it troubling rather than interesting. But I would defend her right to do it just as much as my right to say its bad.
And maybe if I like the sound of it I would have a completely different view!
And in a related note...
Interesting subversion of hip-hop culture, or appropriation of urban black American culture by a white middle-class male?
Or just an arch bloke
being arch? Covering hip hop classics in an hilariously incongruous style is pretty much a staple of a particular sort of nerdy collegiate American act these days... See Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine for many many more.
Too true
I suspect the 'it will make me look cool' motivation, along with the 'it will earn me money' motivation are probably key factors.
Anyway
it's nothing on my rendition of Blackstreet's 'No Diggitty' in the style of George Formby.
Go on, just picture it... *strums banjolele* "Shawty get down, good lord, maybe gonna shake it all over town..."
This isn't you, is it?
Haha I wish
he's very good. He was in Collapsed Lung back in the day, dontcha know.
Since it was posted here by our esteemed leader, Mr Hepworth
I have been absolutely addicted to this video, and watch it at least once a day. Never fails to make me feel good.
Collapsed Lung, eh? Of Eat My Goal fame? How interesting.
You mean like this?
Pete and Dud's view
Gerald
Bo Duddley allegedly gave birth to this.
Dodgy logic
So, let me see if I've got this right, it's ok for rap stars to call women bitches because, er, they're used to it. Rap culture post-dates Tattoo You by and large. I strikes me as fairly obviously misogynistic and offensive. To excuse it on the basis that it's become a colloquialism in a particular sector of society is no different to tolerating bigots because they know no better.
Jay Z struck me as intelligent, articulate and worldly in his interviews with Jonathan Ross and Jools Holland, so I don't get it. Are we applying different rules here just because of some misguided sense that we have no right to judge?
Agreed
How many of us would stand up and cheer the Macc Lads for their songs (incl. "Poof", "Piles"), as they represent the "true white northern working class male experience"?
Not many of us, I'd wager. I wouldn't. In the same manner that I don't like the way rap objectifies women and has made it okay for the term 'bitch" to be bandied around. The same term used by a member of the Taliban? Sinister. Used by a rapper? Urban expression.
"Dehumanising the victim makes things simpler, it's like breathing with a respirator"...Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy.
Oddly enough, I was just about to reference the Macc Lads
"You can cook, you can fuck
You can do the washing up
Now I've had enough
Go on get stuffed
Piss off"
Hmm
I agree totally that any misogyny is wrong, and we should not tolerate it or excuse it. However, I think singling out rap culture does bring in race/ class issues as well, and as a white middle-class Scottish woman I have to be aware of my privilege when criticising cultures and norms which are not my own experience.
However, sexism is endemic without in our society, and examples can be found within almost any musical genre (and rock music's culpability in this has been discussed in various ways on several previous threads), as well as film/ tv/ magazines/etc. It can even be found in a casual, jokey, boys-down-the-pub sort of way on this very blog. I don't usually call attention to it, often because someone else has got there first. In fact I find it encouraging that in this (mostly heterosexual) male-dominated world, issues of sexism/ misogyny are so clearly being thought about and challenged.
There is always the possibility
that you can dislike the misogyny implicit in the word AND like the song. I mean, I would say that the Catholic church currently does more harm in the world than rap music could even begin to dream of, but I don't let it spoil my enjoyment of a good Miserere.
And in any case one "bitch" in a chorus is pretty bloody tame by hip hop standards - as Elhombremalo's link below shows. "A bitch aint one" isn't anything close to Eminem's "I f****** hate you; I'll take your drawers down and rape you / While Dr. Dre videotapes you" and "All I wanted to do was rape the bitch and snatch her purse / Now I wanna kill her".
Oh but of course Eminem is "in character" because he is "in a great Shakespearean poetic tradition of violence and revenge in literature" (© 20,000 gushing articles that unearthed the radical idea that there might actually be some intricate wordplay in this "rap talk" 20 years after the genre was invented, by coincidence just after a white rap fella had a hit album).
Excellent point there,
about disliking the implicit misogyny but liking the song. I was trying to say something similar when I said up there somewhere that the catchiness of the tune made a difference, because I think that most people (radical feminists excepted) do separate out action and intent, the art from the artist. This sort of thing has come up over time here with relation to the music of Gary Glitter and The Mamas and The Papas, and the films of Roman Polanksi, with heated debate raging about whether the work of those who have acted in a morally reprehensible way should be boycotted. As you mention, Catholic Church is another (much larger) example.
I should add
that I don't for one second believe the mealy-mouthed defenders of rap music who say "it doesn't have an effect, it's just reflecting what happens on the streets". I have witnessed enough nasty situations where boys use rap lyrics to psyche themselves up to do bad things to know that of COURSE it reinforces the violent behaviour and bigoted attitudes that it espouses.
However 1) that doesn't stop me loving the music and the lyrical delivery, complexity and inspiration regardless of its effects and 2) it may be bad but there are other causes of those same young men's violence a whole lot more insidious and powerful than the records they listen to and repeat, so I'm not going to single out the rap records as the problem. Indeed I much prefer to - in my limited and shallow way - know and understand those records as part of the system that perpetuates the bigotry and violence rather than turn away and go "oh how awful".
Absolutely
It is not a straightforward A+B=C thing. And the complex interaction you describe between violence and bigoted attitudes in music and in real life, is partly why I think it may be dangerous to single out rap music as other issues of race and class are crucial in understanding the context of people's lives and music. Also, as I keep banging on about and you have also pointed out, violent and misogynistic language and tone can be found all over popular culture and within society as a whole.
Also
There are loads of examples of rap artists who don't go down the violence/misogyny route. As Joe suggests, it's not so much a rap issue per se as it is a societal one.
Weirdly, at the other end of the spectrum you're probably more likely to find stay-in-school, respect-your-elders, women-are-equal lyrics in rap than in any other genre.
It seems weird...
but at the same time it's quite telling that there is a need for that positive stuff to be said.
Telling of what?
That there is a massive systematically criminalised underclass in the USA for whom segregation is within living memory and grinding poverty is daily reality, and who don't feel like singing about beads and things and flowers and crocheted hats and right-on sisterhood in all their songs?
Yes
That exactly.
And therefore there is a need to address issues like equality between the sexes, the importance of education, the need to break cycles of violence, to deglamourise gun-crime.
My point is that the positive stuff takes a stance against the dominant culture with good reason. It is a great shame that the mainstream view of hip-hop is that it's all about money, guns and 'bitches' but it's going through a process, evolving. Maybe it has gone backwards, I don't know. But as I keep saying it can only talk about what is really happening. And, as I keep saying, I personally don't like that or think it's a very pretty picture but there you go.
Not every rap artist reinforces
negative stereotypes.
Just the really, really successful ones.
And I bet when Jay Z is sunning himself on his yacht with Beyonce, segregation and grinding poverty are the last things on his mind. He's thinking, "How can I titillate young boys into buying more of my records?"
I'd imagine that the grinding poverty
he grew up in is very much on his mind in that situation
Word.
.
Quite so.
There is a brilliant Citizen Kane / Sweet Smell Of Success of rap to be made one day I think.
Also let's not fall into the age old trap of saying that rap is either gangsta or conscious, nasty or nice, acquisitive or right on. The most intriguing artists in hip hop, just like Nick Cave, Mick Jagger, Courtney Love, David Bowie, John Lee Hooker or whoever else in popular music, are the ones that are not easy to box in, and certainly aren't particularly nice in their outlook on the whole. Which is NOT to say we should listen to artists that are badass just because they are badass, or that being badass is what makes them interesting, or that great music can't be made entirely based on the finer things and most noble human emotions... but it is a fact of life that complex characters who have the most insight are very often those with a good deal of experience of the darker side of human life.
Authenticity sells
And what really hits the teenage boy sweet spot about rap is that it mixes sex and violence so successfully. Everybody points to the misogyny in hair metal and 70s rock but they weren't mixing it with threat the way hip hop does. Or if they tried, they just looked a bit silly. It's a very potent mix, plus wth rappers you really believe it. I don't know GZA's personal history, but if you listen to Liquid Swords it sounds like a series of anecdotes from the frontline of the drugs war; it's like The Wire in record form and that's one of the reasons it's so appealing. Similarly, to these ears Burzum sounds better than any other black metallers because of the all church burnings and murders. You think that he's living the life and it gives the music an illict thrill. So I take it back, when Jay Z is relaxing on his yacht with his ho, he probably is thinking about the grinding poverty -- he's thinking how he can use it to make himself even more money. It is irresponsble for a multi-millionaire to use misogny to sell records, but fair play to him, it's his job to sell records, and he does more than most to counteract it with a positive message. Still a marketing decision, though. Death to false metal.
Authenticity sells
Jay Z's brew of choice whilst performing on Mr. Holland's show was Twining's English Breakfast tea. Whether he drinks that as a refreshing start to the day whether in the 'hood or aboard his yacht, I couldn't say.
I think it's okay to take a stance on cultural differences
I don't like the Japanese predilection for schoolgirl porn, does that make me a caucasian supremacist?
I don't think so. Just makes me a human being.
Musically, I find aspects of Nashville country music horrendous for reasons that stretch beyond the personal into the realm of the political, so a dislike of a musical form and its content doesn't have to translate as cultural imperialism, does it?
Not always, no.
But it is sometimes an interesting and useful exercise to ask ourselves why we are taking this stance, and where we draw the line. Our experience, both personally and as part of a wider culture, informs our views.
Agreed
and it's something I'm finding myself doing all the more often as I get older.
I didn't say it was OK
I just said you have to take the culture into account.
This might sound like a load of arse but I think hip-hop is an exception - dispatches from a place most of us wouldn't want to live. Sanitise and die.
Let's go back to where it all began
I suspect that Ice-T, OG, isn't getting his props here. He did write it and release it on Home Invasion in 1993.
Of course it all began with
Sir Cliff
"Come on pretty baby, let's move it and groove it
Well a shake-a baby shake, oh! honey please don't lose it."
Cliche
Leaving aside the questions of misogyny and offensiveness, using words like bitch in this way is just so tired. For an art form which has been relentlessly, exuberantly inventive for so much of its existence, hip hop seems to have become stuck in a creative rut, musically and lyrically.
People keep telling me that Jay Z and Kanye West are intelligent and interesting, but whenever I listen to them it just seems to be more 'put your hands in the air like you just don't care' stuff.
Good hip hop is unbeatable, but bad hip hop is unbearable.
Can I say something which may make me sound dumb?
I have never outgrown puerile offensive music.
The first time I heard NWA I got such a thrill (I was 13) and imaginative, deliberately offensive stuff has always had a certain appeal since. My brain knows its childish and sometimes offensive and there are occasions when I baulk, but that's generally when its just unimaginative rather than offensive (case in point Sunflower by Ghost Face Killa and it's charming opening line "Hey bitch, I f*cked your friend, yeah ho, you stink" offensive, yes but totally crap more important)
A lot of music, if not aimed totally at 13 year old boys, may well be aimed at our inner 13 year old and sometimes I think its my inner 13 year old that keeps me listening to music at all.
I'm now off to listen to Woman by the Anti Nowhere League...
Has anyone actually listened to the lyrics?
He's nicked the chorus from Ice T but most of the song is about the trials and tribulations his life brings - it's more about the '99 problems' than the 'bitch'
I agree
Patrick Has it Right,It depends from where you are looking at it from. Most Rappers do this sort of stuff because it sells. Maybe some believe this stuff.others don't.
If Jay Z Wrote a song about Glorifing Robbing Banks and getting into Police shootouts just so he can buy a New Ferrari,he'd be rightly slammed.
RT did it about a motorbike(A classic, mind) and it's acceptable and praised.
If you look at Hip Hop as Urban Folk music then the line of what is acceptable becomes a bit blurry, Doesn't it ?
I shot a man in Reno...
...just to watch him die?
well...
first of all I like the song 99 Problems and enjoy some of JZ's stuff. I'd agree that on this song its much more about the 99 Problems as his "bitch" is not a problem we can assume he is not really promoting (in this song) misogyny but just using a misogynistic term.
secondly just to position myself within all this I'm a white, straight, middle class man.
Now to the point... I like lots of artists with bad attitudes, white, black, whatever... who have dodgy views. But I don't enjoy the songs in which they espouse these views. I detest artists who can't seem to do anything but expose these views (see some recent homophobic reggae artists.) I think we should call them out when they make songs that are bad. It can change things (Beany Man is avoiding homophobia these days, yes he still probably feels it but he doesn't promote it so much, because he lost record sales in the UK).
However we have to look at all artists and their songs in their own cultural context. And so I would say it is correct to say that if you excuse the stones for being dicks (and I don't) then you also have to excuse JZ from being a dick, because poor african-american culture(2009) is much more misogynistic than white middle class culture (2009) and is arguably more or at least as misogenisttic as things were in The Stones (hey)day. Not that white men from middle class backgrounds can't still be sexist, racist, etc... still can be. As can white middle class women.
What bugs me about this stuff is when you get hypocrisy. People who are basically being (and I am already running for cover as I say this) racist. Because they love to listen to white men say awful stuff about women but get all prim about it when black men say that stuff. Just because black men do it over unfamiliar beat patterns and they often speak it rhythmically and are... black.
(I'm not having a go at anyone whatsoever on this thread BTW)
The only difference I can see is that whilst generally all black rap stars (and eminem) have struggled up from poor beginnings and are expressing some very tough things about their reality (until they get rich when they sometimes unfortunately end up blagging about what its like to be really rich and shoot people) white misogynistic rock music is often made by middle class white men who've not had it too bad. And that stretches from the stones to some of the more misogynistic elements in modern heavy metal.
And certainly the misogynistic white middle class rock bands of 2009 have no real excuse for some of their awful output.
Can
you give us some examples of misogynistic white middle-class rock bands today? I'm not trying to be clever-clever or catch you out, but genuinely wondering who are the ones we need to be having a go at.
unfortunately I can't really do that
because I recently heard a whole load of them in a row at an acquaintances house. It was really tragic... he's into heavy metal (I'm not particularly) and he was trying to get me into these bands and playing me track after track... and each one I just found revoltingly misogynistic, and I called him on it and he just couldn't get it. But then he often says misogynistic things which I call him on and he just doesn't get it... probably because he may be a bit misogynistic...
but I don't really want to say much more as I 100% wish for him to remain anonymous.
I don't really want to waste my time trawling youtube looking for bands I don't like and I totally understand why this really damages my argument.
The basic fact of it is when I hear bands I don't like I don't listen to them and I don't really remember them. I don't remember the names of the bands that do horrible homophobic modern reggae or loads of gansta rap bands. I don't even recall a quote from one of them either. Maybe the bands all had a hard time and I'm making too many assumptions. But I know a lot of heavy metal heads who play in bands and they are all white and middle class. Not that I am attacking heavy metal. Far from it, I really like nearly everyone I've ever met who plays or likes metal. That's what shocked me about this experience. Normally I don't like metal lyrics cos their silly not cos they're misogynistic.
The ones I remember are the ones that I like and yet do horrible songs. Such as The Rolling Stones or NWA (admittedly I don't like that many of either of these.)
Anyway I guess my general view on the above is under-informed and people would be best ignoring it. Should have stuck to the main thrust of what I had to say which I think is still pretty right. There are a lot of double standards out their in attitudes to hiphop.
Perhaps other people from the word can think of modern white middle class misogynistic bands. I bet they are out their cos I know for a fact that their are white middle class misogynists out there. Most of them grow out of it when they finally get a girlfriend but some don't.
And like I said my impression was that there were loads from that one mornings exposure.
Thanks for the explanation
and I agree that there are probably a lot of misogynistic rock bands, and, like you, I don't listen to bands that piss me off.
Only 99?
I recently heard the Ice T original which makes Jay-Zs interpretation sound positively prudish.
If you'd like to know more about the kinds of women that Ice-T spends his special time with, then take a listen.