Women in Hip Hop: Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott

Rachel Nee
3/27/15

 

Women in Hip Hop: Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott

            This week we discussed more about women in Hip Hop and had group presentations based on the readings we were assigned. My group and I were assigned a reading based on rappers Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliott. The reading takes a look at both female rappers and how they differ in the image they put on for their music. Missy Elliott was big back in the early 2000’s, what was different about Missy from female rappers today was the way she dressed. In her videos she is always covered up, usually wearing a track suit and adding her own style to her music. Missy has said the choreography was a big part of what she wanted to be shown in her videos and she felt she didn’t need a man and a sexual image as part of her video for a song, she felt much stronger keeping the image she had. I admire Missy for this, and a lot of people questioned her sexuality due to the fact that she never revealed anything in her videos, never wore scantily clad outfits, she always stood by her image. I was shocked to find out that many people did criticize her for never changing her image and questioned her sexuality based upon what she wore. Then you look at the female rappers in today’s music like Nicki and see a completely different image then what Missy displayed. Nicki’s videos are a lot more sexualized; she wears revealing outfits and includes both male and female dancers dancing against each other. In our group presentation, my group and I included videos by Missy and Nicki to compare the images of a female in Hip Hop then and now. We viewed Gossip Folks by Missy, where she starts off with people talking bad about her then continues her video wearing a tracksuit and bases it on choreography. We then looked at Nicki’s video for Anaconda, here the video focuses mainly on her butt and includes all female dancers dancing against each other wearing scantily clad outfits. Two completely different images in two completely different times, today’s society expects more out of artists to have them put on this sexualized image, to change who they are. What I admire Nicki for being able to poke fun at herself, who knows the Anaconda video could have been a way of over doing what society expects and how silly it is. It could also just be this act she puts on because we have seen Nicki mature and start wearing less revealing clothes when she makes public appearances. Either way, society has set an expectation for these women to sexualize themselves, it is also because of the fact that in male Hip Hop videos women have always been made to seem like an object, every body part especially their butt are seen more than their actual face, and they're always in bikinis dancing around the guys. The males set that image that that is how women should be in videos, so for someone like Missy to take a stand and never fall into that category I think is what we need in today’s society. Missy isn’t as big as she was now; it’s more about artists such as Nicki with that image. These women shouldn’t feel they have to live up to this standard; they shouldn’t be criticized like Missy was for not revealing themselves and doing what they wanted to instead. Discussing the women in Hip Hop then and now made me really think about what society expects now for females, and to me it’s sad that they have to be made to feel that they have to sexualize themselves in their music in order to get attention. That they have to wear these revealing outfits in their videos, they should be doing what they want to do, if they choose to put on a sexual image that’s their choice, but women aren’t objects and that is what society needs to learn.