Comments on: Ashley Judd was right about hip hop. . .Kinda.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:58:00 +0000

That so? Hmm. I’m not familiar…

By: Rob Fields

Rob Fields — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:37:00 +0000

No anonymous cheap shots, please.

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Maybe the hick that raped her was psyched off of a Lauryn Hill album

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:57:00 +0000

and let me add about half of maroon 5′s songs to that list.

By: jazzman7

jazzman7 — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Rob, your article is very insightful and balanced. What needs to be noted is that Hip Hop is a lifestyle, not just music as Jessica, Talib, Toni and all of the “Conscious Poets” would point out. Ashley Judd has been a strong advocate for women’s rights and the resperct that they deserve. However she did overgeneralize the issue by saying “…most rap and hip hop….”

By: maíra

maíra — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:14:00 +0000

BLACK DIAMOND – that’s what you are!
so amazing reflections… first time i read you, I’ll come back always!!

By: Renee

Renee — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 22:24:00 +0000

Thank you for this analysis. Most of the commentary and articles I’ve come across have totally missed the mark, either defending Judd blindly or demonizing her.

By: joelygabs

joelygabs — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:51:00 +0000

point blank, she’s on target here. and remember she didn’t say ALL rap. i think that people will read that and say she’s completely bashing. she just said most of it. and i agree. and let’s face it. we live in a misogynistic country. PERIOD. we as a nation must deal day and day out with magazine covers of scantily clad women..we see it in movies. we see it on tv. it’s everywhere. and we feed into it. we buy into it. so really what does that say about US as a nation? i mean granted she has a point and she has a right to make a point and it’s true to an extent. but rap gets so much flack BECAUSE it’s blunt and curt. those songs that the previous poster gave as examples..it’s understood that sex and misogyny are in there but it’s not as out front and at attention like rap is. so rap gets takes the heat. maaaaybe if we as music listeners take a stand and don’t support these songs..don’t go to shows..don’t buy it..the rappers who write these lyrics will be forced to go back to the drawing board and try something else. but if we continue to do the opposite of what i suggested, it will never end and the hypocrisy of this world will continue. i always said this country as much as i love it has two HUGE problems..repression..and hypocrisy. and the misogyny is why i don’t listen to as much rap as i used to anymore. i fed into it. now i’m done. for all the positive rap that is out there, and there is a lot of positive..it doesn’t see the light of day because everyone wants the dirty. everyone wants the filth. and then we complain about it when we see it in movies and such. again. way to go america.

oh and hasn’t ms. judd been in a movie or two that were sexually charged? hmmmmm… those who live in glass houses ash…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:02:00 +0000

She has a point. I don’t like or listen to much rap. Not my thing.
The problem though is that there’s a big difference between saying the music is crap or just of no interest to her and saying it’s rape music or the soundtrack of misogyny.

The same people that denounce rap go out and shake their a$$ to the Rolling Stones “Brown Sugar”, “Midnight Rambler”, “Stray Cat Blues” “Starf*****” or “Under my Thumb” , Steely Dan’s “Cousin Dupree”, Elton John’s “Dirty Little Girl” and so on. One might argue that much of current rap exceeds all of those songs in bad attitudes but that would still require excluding much of hardcore metal, thrash,punk and so on from the analysis. It just reeks of hypocrisy and bad history.

The blues song “CC Ryder” and the country song “T for Texas (Blue Yodel)” have a common predecessor as you can tell from the very similar lyrics. “I’m gonna buy me a shotgun as long as I am tall/I’m going to shoot that woman dead against the wall”. Robert Johnson’s “32-20″ blues talks about “cutting his woman half in two” while Pat Hare had a song titled “I’m gonna murder my baby”. Even teddy bear BB King occasionally got in the act with lyrics stating “I’ll make your mother a gift of you and your casket too”.

So unless you want to talk about the entirety of music, of course partisans of rap are going to defend their favorite form of music. The other bad implied argument is that because someone consumes a certain form of art, that automatically means they are a bad person or will do bad things caused by the consumption of that art. Not so.

By: Rob Fields

Rob Fields — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:07:00 +0000

I’d prefer that you stay away from broad generalizations. I understand the frustration, though. But I believe there are are a lot of good things happening in hip hop. Check out some of the artists I named in the third and fourth paragraphs, as examples.