The Words Have Changed but the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music

Abstract

Rap music emerged as an aesthetic cultural expression of the urban youth in the late 1970s. It has been denoted as the poetry of the youth who are often disregarded as a result of their race and class status. Since it first came on the music scene, rap has gone through a number of phases, and it has been used as a medium to express a variety of ideas, feelings, and emotions. Hope, love, fear, anger, frustration, pride, violence, and misogyny have all been expressed through the medium of rap. This article examines the use of misogynistic ideology in gangsta rap and traces the connection between its prevalence in rap and the larger cultural picture of how African American women have been characterized historically.