| Get Into It! Spring - Summer 2008 |
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Will Hip-Hop Mamas Please Stand Up?
By Marlo David-Azikwe
As a mother of two sons – ages seven and five – and a black feminist woman who enjoys hip-hop culture, I have recently turned my attention to the subject of mothers and hip hop. I wonder why black women who write hip-hop lyrics do not often talk about the life of being a mother. I am sure some of them are mothers, and if they are not, they know women who are. Because so much of the hip-hop industry is controlled by men, we do not get to hear much variety in the voices of women in hip hop, especially on the radio.
What I’m hearing in hip hop nowadays is that popular women hip-hop performers often assert a feminist attitude about themselves through sexuality. Their claims to sexual freedom are linked to sexual play and sexual domination of men.
Missy Elliott, one of the most
influential voices in hip-hop, takes on this hyper-sexualized
persona. For instance, she has a song called “Mommy” on her 2005 CD
“The Cookbook.” In that song, she calls herself “mommy,” but rhymes
about enticing men and using them for their money. She uses her
sexuality to assert power, but ultimately leaves female fans with
little more than exploited sexual agency.
I am concerned that women hip-hop performers rarely acknowledge
mothers.
| If you have children, you are a babymama. That’s all hip hop imagines the mother to be. |
The fact is that women can also be mothers. Our bodies are also potential mothering bodies. As women who claim to assert female power, these artists often ignore the fact that many black women who listen to their music have children. Hip hop doesn’t give that any power. Our stories and struggles rarely get any kind of attention.
It doesn’t have to be, “Oh you’re a mother; you’re a single mom.” Tupac raps about Dear Mama and how his mama had to struggle, his mama had to work so hard. Here I am, the son talking about my mother. But you don’t hear women saying, I’m a mother. It’s not a popular topic and mothering has no power. Even in a black space, we’re imagined as being a welfare mom or a mother who is dependent on something.
There are plenty of women who consume hip hop music, lifestyle and culture who are mothers. We are not seeing ourselves reflected. Instead we are seeing that to be a mother is to be looked at with some kind of pity by your children. You don’t get to articulate for yourself what it means to be a mother. There’s no power there for you.
Every mother now, within that culture, is a babymama. If you have children, you are a babymama. That’s all hip hop imagines the mother to be. There is no other mother that is available to the hip hop imagination.
Even other women will say, At least I’m not the babymama. I’m the sexy person that you really want because you got your babymama over there. You don’t want her because she’s your babymama. You want me.
So I am asking, who are the babymamas? Can they talk for themselves? Can they have a life or an identity or anything?
Lauryn Hill is a good example of a woman who uses her music to talk about being a mother. Unlike other female rappers, Lauryn has maintained a strident, feminist stance against the hyper-masculinity that dominates the industry. Her song, “To Zion,” talks about her choices to be a mother.
In other songs, as a solo artist and as a member of the group The Fugees, Lauryn Hill raps about protecting and supporting children as a way to empower the entire black community. For Lauryn, raising children seems to go beyond an individual choice. It involves a commitment to progressive struggle for black people. She does not ignore the political implications of mothering.
I am not trying to suggest that being a mother is the only way to participate in progressive politics in the black community. Black women must assert their freedom to choose whatever lifestyles that they consciously see fit. That may mean not having children. That may mean adopting children. That may mean being a stay-at-home mother. That may mean having children and then pursuing a career. There are many ways that women can work toward positive change.
I want motherhood to remain in the consciousness of all black women when we talk about empowerment. Because I love hip-hop culture and its potential for social commentary and resistance, I do not want hip-hop feminism to become synonymous with a crass, commercialized sexuality that benefits large corporations and racist stereotypes. Hip-hop feminism can mean a lot more than that. It can talk about the lives of black women who are mothers.
This is important because in the United States, where I live, there are many efforts to control black women and their reproductive lives. There are many ways that black women are portrayed as sexually promiscuous and as uncaring mothers. There are many ways that black children are shown as criminals. There are many ways that black children are being caught up in the criminal injustice system. All of these issues involve the real and symbolic work of mothers.
Marlo David Azikwe is a mama, a wifey, a big sis, and a babygirl, as well as a writer, reader and an accomplished lover of life. In the midst of all of this, she is also a grad student at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Photo, right: Marlo with her husband and two sons.
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What's On?
CNN Special: Blacks in America
"Somebody who saw that special will be looking at me now, thinking that I am probably pregnant with twins for a man whose name I don’t know and looking to the welfare system to support me because it is obvious that a black man never would, right?!"