Women in Hip Hop

Lauren Turcotte
Women and Pop Culture
3/27/15

     This week in class we've really focused on women in hip hop and how much of an impact they have make and how different artist vary. One artist that I personally liked talking about was Nicki Minaj. She is so relevant and she was considered a sexy female figure with a big butt. When her video Anaconda was released it was such a big deal because it was considered risky and sexy because all it did was extenuate her butt. Some people found this was taking it too far but others thought that was just what Hip Hop music was supposed to be. Although she was just known for being sexy she wanted to be known as someone who could do whatever she wanted too, regardless of the media. She made some sort of statement saying that she wanted to be a role model for girls and wanted them to know that they could be anything they wanted to be. I could relate a lot to the comments the reading was making about her because she is in the media a lot so it is fresh in my mind what she’s up to. There are a lot of differences between  an artist like Nicki and Missy Elliot. While I was looking up things that Missy was famous for doing, I found myself comparing the things Nicki does in her videos with Missy’s. There is a wide range of how sexualized they are but in completely different ways. For example, Missy never felt like she had to portray herself in a sexy way and would wear baggy clothes in her videos. Nicki, on the other hand, would wear clothes that barely covered her just so she could show off certain body parts. I thought this reading did a great job at covering every angle of the Hip Hop music industry. Hip Hop was always sort of considered as a sexualized type of music but adding artist like Nicki takes it to an extreme. I wonder if the new and upcoming artists feel as though the only way they can make it in pop culture is to be sexy. Nicki Minaj has certainty made it a lot more difficult to compete with her.