“ You wouldn’t get far, Fuck’in them rap stars, you know who you are put your hands up ladies, you wouldn’t get far, if you got your legs closed, It would be just a waste of time, and you know, you wouldn’t get far.Far.Far.”(The Game) The Game, a rapper out California that signed to G-unit (a well known label owned by Dr. Dre and Eminem), wrote this song, representing all of the women in the Hip Hop and R&B videos. If one rapper in the Hip-hop industry opinionated woman to be as promiscuous as in the song, imagine what other artist and people think about women in general. In the hip hop industry, whether it is a Video Vixen, a female artist, or even a male artist’s view on women in the industry women just don’t get enough respect. The time period of women in the music industry or women degrading themselves may have an effect on the disrespect women have been receiving over the year, but the media and what sells also has a lot to do with the disrespect as well. Women have without doubt lived up to there standards of being useful for one thing in the hip hop industry and there are many women that promote it and, but there are only a few of these women that fight it. Video Vixen is where most of there battles are unrecognized as much.
Video vixens are young and exceptionally old women that promote themselves in the music industry, most commonly music videos, to make money or to be known to the world. Some do any thing as a video vixen to get known even more. Karen Steffans, Melyssa Ford, and Buffy are just a few of the video vixens that are most known in the hip-hop industry. The reason they are well known is because of their status to the artist that they have worked for or their own success. Karen Steffans is the author of, the top selling book, Confessions of a Video Vixen and the most popular Video Dancer in the industry because of her success. She also appeared in numerous amounts of videos such as Danger by Mystical, where she danced nude. Karen Steffans acted as Lorenz Tate’s wife in A Man Apart starring Lorenz Tate and Venn Diesel. In her novel, The Confessions of a Video Vixen, Steffans confesses that she has slept with a number of actors and artist to get where she is today. A list of these actors and artist consist of Jay-Z, Jarule, Shaquille O’Neil, Bobby Brown, Lorenz Tate, Venn Diesel, and Ray J. That was just listing a few.
Buffy is another Video Vixen. Her nickname is “Buffy the Booty”. She was in the video So Seductive by Tony Yayo and 50 cent who just happen to be a part of G- Unit as well as The Game at the time. (106 & Park). Tony Yayo in fact tried to cover the fact that he was degrading her by applauding the fact that he had a beautiful black woman in his video instead of a Brazilian or Hispanic light skinned woman. (106 & Park).
There are many female dancers who are trying to follow their dreams by dancing to choreography in music videos and there are also females that use what they got in videos to get what they want. These women are the women who make it hard for the females that want to dance to make something of them selves other than an object to look at.
The females that degrade them selves’ not only make themselves look bad but they ruin the success for the dreamers because when the dreamers apply to dance in videos there are expectations. Karen Steffans explains this when Jay-Z takes her away from his Video set and expects her to have oral sex with him (47). When Karen Steffans did what Jay-Z expected she raised the expectations of a dreamer. There are various more ways that women have degraded themselves in the Hip-hop industry other than being a Video dancer who gets paid for doing more than dancing.
Female artists today also degrade themselves in their own music. When they do this they put themselves down and the women that are in their video for the song. A number of female artist in the hip-hop music industry today include Lil’Kim, Shawnna, Remy Martin, Eve, and Beyonce. Some female artist that paved the way for these artists are Mary J. Bligde, MC Lite, Faith Evans, and some other old school rappers and R&B singers. Female artist today not only lower the standards for woman in the industry with their songs but woman in general. For instance, Shawnna is a rapper out of D.T.P (Disturbing the Peace), a label led by Ludacris. Shawnna’s last to best selling hits were Shake That Shit and Getting Some Head. Getting Some Head was one of the top selling because it grabbed people’s attention. In today’s society this is what sells, sex, no matter how disrespectful it can lead to the music industry being.
Another artist that’s songs are disrespectful is Lil’Kim. Lil’ Kim is both and old time rapper who chilled with Biggie’s crew and a rapper out today. Biggie was a rapper out in the late 80s and 90s who associated with P. Diddy, Lil’ Kim, Faith Evans, and the Bad Boy music company. Bad Boy Incorporation was his crew. Lil’ Kim started making herself seem promiscuous a long time ago when she used to hang with only men rappers and the only subject of her songs were having different types of sex with all of them. Some of these demeaning songs are How many Licks, No Matter That People Say, and Jump off. Lil’ Kim has a nickname, The Queen B of Hip hop, meaning the head dog in charge. She is well known for wearing scandalous outfits that have one of her boobs hanging out or is just very revealing. Lil’ Kim is one of the female artists that paved the way for women to be recognized as objects or accessories to be used for on purpose.
One more example of a female artist that is recognized today is Remy Martin. Her rap name is named after hard liquor. She is apart of the rap group called Terror squad. Fat Joe, a rapper out of Brooklyn, leads Terror Squad. Remy Martin’s last big hit was Conceited which had lyrics that tainted women. Mary J. Blidge, MC Lite, Alicia Keys, and Beyonce are some of the few female artists that did not show their body to get where they are today. They also didn’t use explicit lyrics in their songs for them to sell. These female artists have been to the top and back without degrading themselves so this brings up the question of why do current female rappers feel that sex is the only way to make it to the big time.
Females diminishing them selves sometimes reflects on what the male artists think of them. Most female artist out are the only female in their crew. A crew are the people that artist are also ways around. A crew is sometimes based off of what record label an artist comes from. Each record label usually stick together in videos and on music tracks. For instance, Eve is the only female in Ruff Riders; Remy Martin is the only female in Terror Squad, Lil’ Kim doesn’t even have a crew and she chooses to make music with mostly men, and Shawnna was the only female in DTP until Shareefa (another female rapper) recently came out this year of 2007.
Olivia is one more female that is surrounded by men because of being the only female in her crew. Olivia just left the groups recently because of the disrespect male rappers have towards females. Olivia was apart of G-Unit until recently. Olivia left the group because the rappers in the group expected her to have sex with them. Olivia was not going to be like the Video girls that the group hired or like the female rappers that consider themselves as sex objects, so she decided to leave the group. Olivia is an R&B singer.
Men in the music industry don’t seem to have respect for woman. It seems like most of the negativity towards women as human beings come from the rap world more than in the R&B world. The songs “Wouldn’t Get Far” by the Game, “Touch It or Not” by Camron (Dipset), “Getting Some Head” by Shawnna, “How Many Licks” by Lil’ Kim, “Rock Your Hips” by Crime Mob, “Conceited” by Remy Martin, “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent, and more are list of songs form seven different recognized rap crews and this shows how many of them have respect for woman. Each of those songs describe women as promiscuous and only useful for one thing and the women letting them think these things about woman are only living up to the negative expectations. Male artist from the 90’s had much more respect for females.
There are many artists from the era between the 70’s and 90’s that have impacted the world’s view on women today. Tupac impacted many modern artist views because of some of his songs, but he also respected women in some of his songs such as “Appreciated”, and “Keep Your Head Up”, but “Brenda’s Got A Baby” showed both the good and bad side of a woman. Tupac Shakur was a “gangster rapper” from California who rapped with Snoop Dog and other rappers. He also had conflict with Biggie Smalls. Both Biggie Smalls, and rapper from New York in the 90’s, and Tupac were shot. Tupac’s song, Brenda’s got a Baby, was about a teenage African American girl who was promiscuous that slept with older men who got pregnant and through her baby in the dumpster even though people could tell the baby was Brenda’s because the baby had Brenda’s eyes.
This is a specific view of how artist from the 90’s depicted women and how you can relate the views from now and then because it has nothing to do with what the male artist think but what females do and what people see them do that make people judge them to be such horrible human beings
Did women bring this (their depictions) upon themselves? The answer to this question depends on each and every woman’s opinion because of the fact that not every woman acts the same. It also depends on what the media wants and how a woman presents herself in the media. The fact is, sex sells, and because of this, women do their best to make as much money as possible. They most likely think of the situation as, the more I degrade myself the less amount of times I will have to do it. Women were taught in history that men were smarter than women and many women proved them (the men) wrong by going to college and getting an education. The women today just put women from history’s accomplishments.
A Video Vixen, a female artist, or even a male artist’s view on women in the industry women just don’t get enough respect. Women degrading themselves and disrespecting themselves may have to do with the time period of women in the music industry. The Media play a huge role in this concept but the point is that women are not respected in the hip hop industry and that disrespect is beginning to have a major impact on what the world thinks of women in general.
