Hip Hop Speaking Truth to Essay

men in the hip-hop world. She has been a spokesmodel for Jenny Craig, a company that explicitly utilizes her 'real woman' image to sell its weight-loss product. "She's a CoverGirl and, off-screen, manicures a wholesome image" (What's worse, 2009, Querty). To emphasize her critique of Black male desire and to create another image for a Black woman to 'be' in the world would challenge prevailing norms and the new fascination with Black male power in the mainstream media.

Unlike Queen Latifah, some artists have taken a more controversial stance towards heterosexism. Queen Pen brags of taking a woman away from her boyfriend, in her song "Girlfriend" with a playful swagger similar to that of black male rappers: "After all, bragging about luring a woman away from her boyfriend is practically de rigueur on a hip-hop album," and she sings 'If that's your girlfriend, she wasn't last night'" to a man (Jamison 1998). By speaking to a man, and to masculinity in general, Pen makes lesbianism relevant to the typical concerns of testosterone-fueled hip-hop. But Queen Pen aligns herself with male rappers by often adopting their language and attitude."She calls women 'bitches,' for example, and expresses detached amusement: 'She slid by me four or five times / wantin' me to notice the rhythm of her thighs / Girls are just so funny to me'" (Jamison 1998).

Thus a Black lesbian either must ignore misogyny and homophobia in the movement like Latifah, or celebrate it by using the argot of Black men like Pen. There is no middle, alternative voice for Black lesbians at present that is openly lesbian and proudly Black, and neither silence nor merely imitating men is a satisfactory solution.

References

Bennett, Jessica. (2008, May 16). Outing hip hop. Newsweek Web Exclusive.

May 16, 2008. Retrieved October 26, 2009.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/137380

Grantham, C. (2001). Why artists defended Eminem. Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, 8(3),

18. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from OmniFile Full Text Mega database.

Jamison, Laura. (1998, January 18). A feisty female rapper breaks a hip-hop taboo.

The New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2009.

http://www.io.com/~larrybob/queenpen.html

What's worse for Queen Latifah: Outed as gay, or outed for loving strippers? (2009,….....