Word - Hip-hop furor

Spelman students speak against hip-hop’s portrayal of women

On March 2, a handful of Spelman College students gathered in a third-floor computer lab to write letters to executives at Black Entertainment Television, Radio One and WVEE-FM (103.3). Their goal: to protest hip-hop lyrics and videos that portray women as sex objects. Spelman freshman Angela Boudreaux organized the campaign as part of a debate that started in 2004, after Nelly canceled a visit to the campus in response to students’ objection to his video for “Tip Drill.” In the video, a man swipes a credit card down the crack of a woman’s butt.</
“I respect women and I’m not a misogynist. I’m an artist. Hip-hop videos are art and entertainment. ... As for how women are shown in the videos, I don’t have a problem with it, because it is entertainment. ... Women are in the videos by choice.”</
-- Nelly, from a statement responding to the furor his video started at Spelman</
“The images are making young girls think black women as a whole only act like [sluts]. Five years ago, these kinds of videos weren’t shown during the day. But now girls come home from school to see women in nothing, shaking it.”</
-- Brandy Cheeseboro, a Spelman student writing a letter to BET</
“But ho’s don’t feel so sad and blue/Cuz most of us niggaz is ho’s, too.”</
-- Ludacris, from his 2000 single “Ho”