A lot of things come to mind when I hear the word ‘hip hop’, but the very first thing that I think of is ‘video vixen’. This might be due to the context to which the question is in; nevertheless it comes to mind. I can think of a hundred other things related to hip hop but I cannot picture a hip hop music video without big breasted, big booty and half naked black women.

In most of our hip hop music videos today, the black woman is depicted as a bombshell freak desired by all the men involved with the particular song BUT cannot be mistaken as ‘wifey material’. In “miss me” by drake, he raps about two real life black strippers that he dated but goes on to say, ‘I don’t judge her but I could never love her’. Even Chris Brown who is known for cheating and beating his ex-girlfriend, Rihanna, sings about ‘these hoes aint loyal’ in his single “loyal”. The rapper Kanye West is a good example of a rapper who dated a video vixen, Amber Rose, and l later on degrades her to being a whore after his marriage to Kim Kardashian.

“ By the way, it’s very hard for a woman to wanna be with someone that’s been with Amber Rose.

“I had to take 30 showers before I got with Kim.”

Amber Rose who has only been linked to two rappers, being married to one, is called a whore compared to Kim Kardashian who has been linked to many guys in Hollywood and who famously came up by her sex tape. Slut shaming is wrong and this is not a matter of ‘who is really the whore’, rather, it’s criticisms on which bodies are considered defiant and which are not under similar circumstances. Amber Rose is a black woman and as Dionne P. Stephens and April L. Fewin discuss in their article “Hip Hop Honey or Video Ho: African American Preadolescents’ Understanding of Female Sexual Scripts in Hip Hop Culture”, black women are depicted as the Diva, Gold Digger, Freak, Dyke, Gangster Bitch, Sister Savior, Earth Mother, and Baby Mama in hip hop. Amber Rose does play the role of the freak in music videos, which Kanye Wests takes advantage of by insinuating that she is a whore as opposed to his white bodied wife.

References:

Stephens, Dionne P., and April L. Few. “Hip Hop Honey or Video Ho: African American Preadolescents’ Understanding of Female Sexual Scripts in Hip Hop Culture.” Sexuality & Culture 11.4 (2007): 48-69. Web.

“”Miss Me” Lyrics.” DRAKE LYRICS. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

“”Loyal” Lyrics.” CHRIS BROWN LYRICS. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.

“Kanye West and Amber Rose: What REALLY Went on between Model and Kim’s Husband.” Mirror. N.p., 21 July 2015. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.