As I’ve discussed before, I’m trying to get a better handle on some of the stuff I listen to. Too many of the defenses I give for misogyny ring hollow to me now. But I’m not going to pretend there isn’t a bunch of objectionable stuff that I still really like. In fact, there’s plenty. So, here are 25 or so cuts that I know damn well I shouldn’t dig but can’t help (yet) but to dig.
In no particular order.
Bitches Ain’t Shit – Dr. Dre. To point out one choice lyric in this is impossible, so I’ll just mention the hook–“bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks/like on the nuts and suck the dick/get the fuck on after you get done/then I hops in my shit and make a quick run.” But I’ve seen those drums make the most enlightened necks jerk.
Juvenile on Fire – Juvenile. This is one of those cuts that I find to be more problematic because of its language than its sentiment. Like Juve, I don’t think it’s cool for a man to go broke spending money on a woman that he wouldn’t spend on himself. There are a few things on here that just ain’t right, though.
I’m a Player – Too Short. This isn’t the worst of the Too Short records, but this is my favorite one. But ummmm, can’t cosign the following–“I made up my mind when I was seventeen/I aint with no marriage or a wedding ring/I’ll be a player for life/so where’s my wife?/prolly in the rehab stuffin the pipe/cuz she must be smokin/and I’m not jokin/too Short baby coming straight from Oakland/got way more bitches than I’ll ever need/I put that on a big fat bag of weed/cuz I would give you a bitch but wouldn’t roll you a joint/bitches ain’t shit and now I made my point.” Whoa.
D.E.E.P. – OutKast. Yeah, slurring white folks ain’t cool. It’s just not. The silly things people do when they’re seventeen, I guess. And, of course, the song’s dope as hell.
Sweet Child O Mine – Guns N Roses. Not because of this song itself. But acknowledging that a reprehensibly racist, homophobic sumbitch like Axl Rose did anything good is so hard for me to admit. But I must.
Fuck My Car – UGK. Never any telling where to start when it comes to misogynistic UGK records, but this isn’t a bad start. “Unless your pussy make $10,000 a week/the only way I’ll see you sittin in my passenger seat/ya bitch.” Umm, okay.
Brown Sugar – Rolling Stones. Gee Mick, just how should a black girl dance? Combine this with the line on “Some Girls” where he says that, “black girls just wanna get fucked all the time,” and you really gotta wonder about those guys. Oh yeah, and the time Keith said that all gangster rappers should be locked in a room together so they can just kill each other. Wonder if he’d say that about those violent bluesmen the Stones love so much.
Chillin With My Bitch – TI. The song is dope and almost sweet. There’s not that much wrong with it lyrically. But dude, does she really have to be your bitch?
Good Thing We’re Rapping – Digital Underground. The thing about htis cut is that it’s so creative, as would be expected from Shock G. But man, some of the pimp talk on here is disturbing.
Ain’t No Fun – Snoop Doggy Dogg. Pick a line, any line. And tell me this shit don’t get your ass shakin at the club. I dare you to look me in the eye and say that honestly.
Wildflower – Ghostface Killah. This nigga’s crazy. Period. No other way to say it. And he’s one of the greatest of all-time.
Hell Yeah – dead prez. Here’s my beef. As an act of rebellion, one of these cats talks about robbing a pizza man. Yeah, bang on the system by helping endanger the job of someone just as broke as you are. The corporation’s really gonna miss that fifty bucks. I’m convinced these two don’t think about the stuff they say, and anyone that sees the as a bastion of thought in the bleak pop landscape isn’t as smart as (s)he thinks. But this joint bangs.
Lay It Down – Eightball and MJG. Check MJG’s verse and simultaneously be amazed by the genius of its construction and the abhorrent subject matter.
I Got Love – Nate Dogg. The flutes on this are incredible, as is the groove. However, the idea of packing a weapon because an emotionally attached woman might run up on him on the street is absurd. In case you didn’t know, Nate hates women.
Get Your Roll On – Big Tymers. Sorry, you can’t say “slap that bitch, punch that ho” and think that’s cool. But ummm, you peeped that beat?
Jesse James – Scarface. I’m not even sure this is terribly objectionable, but it’s scary as fuck.
Get Down (Like a Pimp) – David Banner w/Lil’ Flip. It’s one of those cuts that’s screwed without being screwed, and it’s so catchy and dope. However, there’s so much misogyny on here that is good for little more than shock value. These cats know better.
Wait – Ying Yang Twinz. I have no problem with this being sexually graphic. I see nothing wrong with saying you really wanna have sex and saying so in a vulgar way. Vulgarity doesn’t equal personal disrespect to me. But just calling people bitches because it sounds cool just isn’t the way to go.
No Vaseline – Ice Cube. What a great diss record. However, you gotta wish there was a better way to do it than throwing around homosexuality as an insult. Gotta be.
Sophisticated Bitch – Public Enemy. Yeah, I don’t like people like the one in this cut too much, either. Again, calling someone a bitch just to do it just ain’t the way to go.
Gimme Dat – Webbie. “You know you want it girl/don’t act like you don’t want it/girl, you want it just as bad as I do/but look, you gon’ be wishin that you been gave me your money by the time I get through rumblin with you.” You mean like fighting? Serious? But the first part of that rhyme is dope as hell. I can’t deny that.
Scarred – Luke. This makes it for Trick Daddy just calling a chick a “pregnant bald-head bitch.” Huh? But I’ve had some great times jumping behind someone as soon as I heard “Cap’n Dick comin…”
(Stopping at 22. Got stuff to do. Add yours.)
16 thoughts on “25 or so I'm Ashamed to Like”
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Again, “Evidence” – Faith No More
Not that it’s new for me to be repetitive, but your hip-hop heavy list forgot one that I KNOW should be included.
If you want to open the hole/Just put your head down and go/Step beside the piece of the circumstance/Got to wash away the taste of evidence
I seriously snoozed on this one.
Agreed. Without all that RBG nonsense that dead prez song would be fucking sick. Here’s a couple of mine.
1.The new Bubba Sparxxx-Ms New Booty or whatever
2.Snoop Dogg-Let’s Get Blown (funky as hell)
3.Silkk Tha Shocker-No Limit Party (hey, who doesn’t make hoes buy their clothes?)
4.Beatnuts-We Got The Funk (aka any Nuts song)
5.Alkaholiks-DAAM!
6.ODB-Got Your Money
7……..Tony Yayo-Pimpin’……………..
sorry……
” I will never put myself in a position where someone rational will believe that I have a distaste for black people. ”
Above is your quote from your post on Boondocks where you take issue with the use of nigga.
Question man? When will we as black men “never put ourselves in a position where someone rational will believe that we have a distaste for black women”
I too am kinda checking myself on the blatant misogyny in the stuff i listened to. I believe that its our constant bitchification of black women that is more dangerous than any “n” word. I ain’t trying to get Cosby on you but challenging these “i hate the n-word” cats on this double standard i see where its cool to like the “flow” of someone dissin sistas but its not cool to call someone a nigga. In my book neither is cool and neither should be tolerated.
Those two pennies are about five bucks worth of food for thought.
” I will never put myself in a position where someone rational will believe that I have a distaste for black people. ”
Above is your quote from your post on Boondocks where you take issue with the use of nigga.
Question man? When will we as black men “never put ourselves in a position where someone rational will believe that we have a distaste for black women”
I too am kinda checking myself on the blatant misogyny in the stuff i listened to. I believe that its our constant bitchification of black women that is more dangerous than any “n” word. I ain’t trying to get Cosby on you but challenging these “i hate the n-word” cats on this double standard i see where its cool to like the “flow” of someone dissin sistas but its not cool to call someone a nigga. In my book neither is cool and neither should be tolerated.
Those two pennies are about five bucks worth of food for thought.
You got me thinking back to high school when I used to listen to virtually nothing but the dirty dirty gangsta rap and the amount of cognitive dissonance that goes hand in hand for a lily white suburbanite to listen to guys who absolutely hate your ass and would just as soon steal you in the jaw for being white if it weren’t for the fact that you’re making them rich. It’s not unlike the Chris Rock quip about women dancing to blatantly misogynistic music. “He ain’t talkin about me”
At some point in my 20’s I mentally grauated and put the filter on the hip hop that made my playlist.
I feel ‘shamed-
Torn by Natalie Imbruglia
Mentirosa by Mellow Man Ace (I can’t help it; i laugh every time)
What Happened to That Boy by Baby and Clipse
Me & U by Cassie (yes…i actually said that. i like that song.)
Pump It by Black Eyed Peas
Toma by Pitbull…the words are stupid, but I love that song.
and…..
Say You’ll Be There by the Spice Girls.
…sigh.
Not sure the point got across on how I chose these…
I’m not “ashamed to like” songs, but I definitely only listen to particular songs in certain company. You seem to focus on rap songs, so I’ll do the same. I listened to a lot of the dirty, ignorant, violent blues, R & B, and rock songs our parents and grandparents listened to. They can be quite hypocritical, can’t they?
Great call on Wildflower. It’s a brilliant “I loved you, You hurt me” rant.
Many of Slick Rick’s greatest fall into this category (I’ve been listening to “Sittin In My Car” a lot).
Many from Devin The Dude.
Although I find the words to Ice Cube’s “Black Korea” disgusting and racist, it makes sense within the context of his classic Death Certificate album. The same goes for “Look Who’s Burning” and “Givin Up The Nappy Dugout,” which I read (in conjunction with the preceding skit) as a commentary on the double standard about male and female promiscuity, at least in part.
A few from Jay Z, esp. “Girls Girls Girls”: I don’t understand the people who got all up in arms about the “misogyny and racism” of this song. It obviously works on an ignorant Comic View stereotype level, as well as a stupid “I’m a pimp, I got all kinds of girls” level; however, to me, the song is meant to show the ridiculousness of racial/cultural stereotypes. He deliberately chooses the most absurd , even ones that don’t really fit (mixes Indians, ascribes French Fries to the French, etc.) The fact that he could get away with it in a huge pop rap single is amazing.
Ain’t no fun – Snoop
Dog Ish – Wu-Tang
A@#$# and Titties – 3:6
Man, I’ve smoked with Ghostface. Cool cat.
I fully agree with you on the Dead Prez song, I hated that song for a while, just because the idea behind it was so idiotic. As if petty crime is pimping the system.
Jay-Z, “Ain’t No Nigga” (excerpt below)
“I keep ya dove but love, you know these hoes be makin’ me weak, you know how it goes ‘b and so I creep, I’ve been sinnin’ since you’ve been playin’ with Barbie and Ken and,
you can’t change a player’s game in the 9th inning”
Jigga = true player.
Lil’ Wayne, “Earthquake” (excerpt below)
“I’ll take your bitch, give her back, and then take your bitch again,
that’s because you throw a 5, I pitch a 10
Now she wanna get inside of my ’66
she sees that my wrist is blue and yellow like Michigan, she say she love her man, she misses him, nobody do it better than a long distance dick (me), I’m her long distance pimp, when I land my bitches wait for me on the strip”
Weezy F. Baby. And please say the baby.
Tupac, “Skandalouz” (excerpt below)
“How’s it hangin’? Cause baby from the back shit is bangin’, I’ve been stressin’ in this ghetto game, tryna do my thang, won’t be no bullshit, no ass-kissin, this bitch will have you wakin’ up with all your cash missin’, I’m asking, as if I’m qualified to analyze, you’re lookin’ at a bitch who specialize in tellin’ lies, she got a body make a mothafucka fantasize, her face ain’t never shed a tear through them skandalouz eyes.”
Real talk from Tupac, again.
(Takes on Devil’s Advocate role)
Ashamed to like my ass…
Saying you’re ashamed to like those songs is saying you’re ashamed to like about half of the old Southern soul records that talk generally about the same things, but in a much better manner..
I’m not ashamed to like most of those songs…Wait, I don’t even listen to 3/4ths of those songs because they suck.
Y’all starting to sound worser than our parents and grandparents over this. Generation gap my ass.
It’s funny, once we upgrade our libations tastes from beer to cognac to wine and we only start going to clubs that only allow 25 and older…noooooow we want to set some musical standards…This born-again grandiose thinking is actually defeating the purpose…
I guess that’s why I cringed when I reluctantly bought a Lil’ Boosie and Webbie CD for my brother to send down to Miami…
(OK, I’m done ranting and making little sense, back to your friendly neighborhood WMD)
Okay, I’m a chick, and I hate to admit I like some of those songs. Definitely the I find the Jay-Z “Ain’t No Nigga” song, such an infectious beat, but such a racist/misogynistic view of Black folks. But here’s a few I would add and why:
Christine Aguilera–“Come on Over” That is such a bubble gum pop song, and I turn it up every time it’s on.
Digital Underground– “Humpty Dance” On another site a bunch of 30 somethings like myself were dissing the Laffy Taffy song, but I think Humpty Dance is our Laffy Taffy. What the hell is the point of the song; what does that mean?
I agree with the choice of Guns and Roses…I feel guilty about liking that song.
Ludacris–“Area Codes” It is obviously the beat that I like because hoes is areas so blantantly misgynistic.
N’Sync– “Gone” Don’t ask.
Lou Bega– “Mambo #5”
Young MC– “Busta Move”
Those are just a few…..I guess I think most of them are really bad pop songs, but I like the beat. The “mature” part of me wants to say I don’t like those songs, but if I’m being honest………
In the song, “Some Girls”, Jagger said, “Black girls just wanna get fucked all night.” (not all the time) In the same song he admitted he couldn’t handle that, so I always found it to be kind of funny.
His girlfriend in the early or mid 70’s was black – is it possible he made that statement based on personal experience?
Bun B ft. Juvie and Too Short – Who Need a B****.
Too Short – Shake that monkey
Notorious B.I.G. – I got a story to tell.
all pretty much self-explanatory, I think.
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Although “objectionable” may be my middle name (or part of it), it’s weird because I’m questioning the real mentality behind beez and aitches. Do men/male artists really think women are just something to skeet in? Or do they just say certain things to be hardcore or for the shock value? I can’t tell anymore. Or maybe I was blind to the facts. But it’s bigger than music. There is a mentality that fuels the music. Rappers just blurt it out. It’s not a problem confined to black men. It’s a problem that applies to all society, including women ourselves who feed into or try to use our sexuality to “gain” something.
PS. No one says “bitch” like Pimp C. I have rewound many a time just to here that “bitch” on the beginning of Sippin on some Sizzurb.
And I’m a fan of prolly 80% or the people/songs on this list. Go figure…Oh! But I’m from the south and a sucker for a hard beat/bass line. What else is there to shake my ass to?