"The Rappers Made Me Do It"

I found Tricia Rose’s book to be intriguing. It was not like all the other texts of hip hop critics who seem to be biased and form an opinion swaying to either side of the spectrum. I liked that she was so unbiased because that allowed her to actually stand back and seriously dissect the topic she had at hand. She truly offered deep and insightful opinions covering both supporters and critics of hip hop, which is rare to hear both sides of a story. I liked how throughout some portions of her texts, she spoke of hip hop as though it were a person really, which gave it a voice. (Really ‘hip hop’ is used as coded language for the people who produce and consume it, the ‘hip hop generation’). In the chapter on Hip Hop Demeans Women, she says how some women explain the misogyny in hip hop lyrics as being in an abusive relationship. “Some say they have to let it go likening it to a love affair gone bad” (126). It seems that in explaining this, she says that women have a very strained and abusive and hurtful relationship with hip hop that is ultimately damaging emotionally and demeaning. And saying it this way puts the onus on rappers to change their lyrics and appeal to alter their content so it is not as demeaning to women. But Rose’s main point in her text is to ignore the social conditions of poor black urban America and blame them primarily on black people themselves is reflective of “a long-term drive to deny the continued power and influence of institutional racism, sustains a racialized ‘us’ versus ‘them’ philosophy that enables the maintenance of racial and class inequality” (52). She makes it clear that hip hop is not to blame and that in light of comments like that of Don Imus prior , hip hop should not be used as a mere scapegoat cause the rappers could not have made him (or anyone else for that matter) do it. Society should be held more accountable for its problems.