Sex in Hip Hop: Reclaiming Sexualisation
Rap trio Salt-N-Pepa in their early year's.
In what is a shocker to no one, sex well and truly permeates hip hop history. From racy music videos to lascivious lyricism, rap music is no stranger to being upfront about lust. In actuality, the same can be said for most other genres. Songs about sex from all nooks and crannies of the industry flood the charts. Hip hop, however, tends to garner the bulk of the attention for doing so as it tends to be more explicit and braggadocious.
References of sex in rap are predominantly very boastful, which through rose-tinted glasses exudes a confidence that is so emblematic of the genre. Simultaneously though, hip hop bears a history for hosting sexist values through the expression of aggressive sexual attitudes. In rap, a heteronormative environment is fostered through the overwhelming frequency of heterosexual perspectives and themes relating to relationships and intimacy. In doing so, hip hop also exhibits a male-dominant gender power dynamic that is enforced through lyrical image control.
In Dionne Stephens and Layli Phillips’ studies they discuss how late 90s and early 2000s hip hop uses degrading, sexually charged lyricism to create and control images of women through a patriarchal framework. By labelling and painting women in these degrading, sexualised archetypes, these terms and their connotative values and traits become gendered and further enforce the gender power dynamic at hand.
That being said, the gender power dynamic in hip hop isn’t exactly consensus and is academically debated on which way it leans and to what extent. Sociologist Tricia Rose views it instead as a rapport between male and female artists, who participate in a back-and-forth dialogue where the sexual empowerment of women is the central idea for both sides in a binary power system. Rose suggests that the present misogyny in male hip hop reflects fear and anxiety regarding the power that women hold in controlling heterosexual sex.
The late 90s and early 2000s saw a huge rise in women in hip hop, particularly those gracing the mic with a counter narrative, reclaiming the sexualisation of women done by men and critiquing male dominance. Artists like Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliott, Trina, and rap trio Salt-N-Pepa brought a new wave to the genre, being raunchy and unapologetic about their sexuality.
Matthew Oware in his studies of female-made 90s hip hop held the personal observation that this method of female empowerment seemed to lyrically lean into the male gaze, self-objectifying and self-exploiting the individual and ultimately undermining the initial intention. In the grand scheme of reclamation, I don’t think this is applicable and evidently neither does the industry or the listenership. The influence of these women on the shape of modern hip hop is undeniable as contemporary successors Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, and most recently Ice Spice proudly take note from Missy Elliott and get their freak on, redirecting their image and empowering women in a historically male-controlled creative space. Latto, the MC behind sex anthem Big Energy, cites Trina as one of her idols as an artist and has tweeted out that she loves rapping about sex because it makes her feel powerful and liberated.
Lil Uzi Vert’s album cover for Pink Tape.
In this discourse, one counter to the counter-narrative that always pops up is the dog whistle complaint that “all women do is rap about sex,” which 1) is not remotely true, and 2) isn’t gender-exclusive and is built on hypocritical foundations. The furthest you have to look to prove otherwise is the two top non-female hip hop albums on the charts. (Gender-nonconforming) Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape cuts straight to the chase on Flooded The Face, rapping “First of all, I fuck eight bitches a day // How could you ever say Lil Uzi gay // Fuck four of 'em raw, fuck four of 'em safe // Think I'm splittin' the odds before you to debate.” And on a Gift & a Curse, Gunna does his due diligence to set the record straight on tracks such as his hit song fukumean, where he says, “Fucking this bitch like a perv // Smack from the back, grab her perm,” and “Suck with no hands, you can learn // Let's see how much you can earn.” Pshh, and they say romance is dead.
