First Look Pictures presents a film written and directed by Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis. Running time: 79 minutes.
April 15, 2007 (Press Release) --
Rated R (for crude and sexual humor, violent images and language). Now playing at local theaters.
In 1990, the rapper-turned actor Queen Latifah challenged rap's misogyny in her hit song "U.N.I.T.Y." In 1993, C. Delores Tucker, who was chairwoman of the National Political Congress of Black Women Inc., led an organized movement which included Congressional hearings condemning sexist and violent rap.
That same year, the Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem drove a steamroller over a pile of tapes and CDs.
In 2004, students at Spelman College, a black women's college in Atlanta, became upset over rapper Nelly's video for his song "Tip Drill," in which he cavorts with strippers and swipes a credit card between one woman's buttocks. The rapper wanted to hold a campus bone marrow drive for his ailing sister, but students demanded he first participate in a discussion about the video's troubling images. Nelly declined.
In 2005, Essence magazine launched its "Take Back the Music" campaign. Writers such as Joan Morgan and Kierna Mayo and filmmaker Byron Hurt also have tackled the issue recently.
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, author of "Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women" and a professor at Vanderbilt University, said many black women resist rap music and hip-hop culture, but their efforts are largely ignored by mainstream media. As an example, the professor pointed to "Rap Sessions," the 10-city tour in which she's participating. She said the tour and its central question does hip-hop hate women? have gotten very little mainstream media coverage.
"It's only when we interface with a powerful white media personality like Imus that the issue is raised and the question turns to 'Why aren't you as vociferous in your critique of hip-hop?' We have been! You've been listening to the music but you haven't been listening to the protests from us."
Crouch said that change in rap music and entertainment likely won't come fast, because corporations are still profiting from the business but it's coming.
Source: http://www.msn.com
In 1990, the rapper-turned actor Queen Latifah challenged rap's misogyny in her hit song "U.N.I.T.Y." In 1993, C. Delores Tucker, who was chairwoman of the National Political Congress of Black Women Inc., led an organized movement which included Congressional hearings condemning sexist and violent rap.
That same year, the Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem drove a steamroller over a pile of tapes and CDs.
In 2004, students at Spelman College, a black women's college in Atlanta, became upset over rapper Nelly's video for his song "Tip Drill," in which he cavorts with strippers and swipes a credit card between one woman's buttocks. The rapper wanted to hold a campus bone marrow drive for his ailing sister, but students demanded he first participate in a discussion about the video's troubling images. Nelly declined.
In 2005, Essence magazine launched its "Take Back the Music" campaign. Writers such as Joan Morgan and Kierna Mayo and filmmaker Byron Hurt also have tackled the issue recently.
T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, author of "Pimps Up, Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Women" and a professor at Vanderbilt University, said many black women resist rap music and hip-hop culture, but their efforts are largely ignored by mainstream media. As an example, the professor pointed to "Rap Sessions," the 10-city tour in which she's participating. She said the tour and its central question does hip-hop hate women? have gotten very little mainstream media coverage.
"It's only when we interface with a powerful white media personality like Imus that the issue is raised and the question turns to 'Why aren't you as vociferous in your critique of hip-hop?' We have been! You've been listening to the music but you haven't been listening to the protests from us."
Crouch said that change in rap music and entertainment likely won't come fast, because corporations are still profiting from the business but it's coming.
Source: http://www.msn.com
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