Gender in my playlist

 

I have always thought that music reflects culture. That is the reason that music is always changing because as cultures combine, split, and are born the music representing those people will always be pushed to the forefront in their respective cultures. I say that to say important ideals, opinions, systems, and ways of governing can all be found in music. My music of choice American rap almost always has a theme connecting in some way to gender, of course, that depends on your perspective. If gender places a role in society, it will be heard in music. This could be why across distance and time one thing that is seen in all cultures and music are different parallels of gender. In this blog, I am going to give examples of popular songs in rap culture and how it relates to gender in mainly the African American community.

 

 

There are a lot of different angles and perspectives about women in this community as in any other. This song by Deante Hitchcock to me represents my view on women and the power they process through not only creation but through overall impact on his life. It also touches on the strength of a woman being seen as the person that a great man leans on behind the scenes. Another connection that he draws that interests me is comparing women to God. I am Baptist and believe in the holy trinity and while Jesus was a man, I could see how God could be closer to a woman in the creation and nurturing aspect even though I do not believe God is a woman nor man but something unmeasurably more.

 

 

This next song was and still is extremely popular. It is called Gold Digger by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx. It begins with Jamie Fox singing what becomes the hook about a woman taking advantage of him for his money. Then it goes into Kanye’s verse where he details a story about a professional athlete who meets this beautiful high-maintenance woman whom he thinks ends up being the mother of his child. He then ends up paying a lot of money over the period of 18 years in child support and other expense to his child for them to be used by the mother for her wants. To cap this terrible situation off, on the child’s 18^th birthday which is when he legally is not liable for child support payments, he finds out that the child was not his all along. The point of the song is to illustrate what can happen when dealing with women after success and how careful you must be. In this culture, it is not seen as common for extremely successful women to financially date down while it is for men. That’s why this perspective is one-sided with men being the ones having to protect themselves. This perspective is sadly very common and holds more truth to it than anyone would like to think.

These are some ways that gender plays a role in my playlist.