Justina Farfan's Introduction to Women and Hip Hop

Hi everyone! My name is Justina Farfan and I’d like to introduce the topic: Women and Hip Hop. What comes to mind when you hear the words women and hip hop? TLC? Queen Latifah? Nicki Minaj? Well these women are just a small representation of the many women who have made an impact on hip hop today. There’s one long list of woman hip hop artists that portrays woman as strong, powerful, and beautiful, yet when you hear some of music and watch the videos of today that image has been completely erased from the face of hip hop music. Even by just listening to the hip hop music over the decades there has been an obvious transition in how women are portrayed.

Here is “U.N.I.T.Y” by Queen Latifah made in 1994, a song that has been greatly impactful on the hip hop genre and one that is uplifting and gives a positive image to women.

Now here is the beginning of the new age of hip hop music featuring extremely vulgar and pornographic lyrics that all started with 2 Live Crew. One of their most popular song "Me So Horny" released in 1989 portrays women as prostitutes and just overall "sluts", completely degrading to women. Take

You can clearly see the degrading image of women that is still prevalent in recent hip hop music today. Pretty much on the radio all you hear today is artists rapping about "bitches and hoes" and even women hip hop artists have used sex and vulgarity in their music as well. When did rapping become more about what you want to do in the bedroom as opposed to using your voice to share a message that has true meaning? Why is it that women are given such a bad image in hip hop music?

I'll discuss this and explore deeper into the different ways women are portrayed in hip hop, from the powerful, strong and beautiful images to the degrading, "slutty", "thots" of todays generation.

-Justina