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Artist News
Rizzle Kicks and Eminem on hip hop bigotry
By Aly Barchi | Published on Wednesday 6 November 2013
Huey-baiting pop tykes Rizzle Kicks have quite rightly kicked off a bit at misogyny and homophobia in hip hop, saying it really does their head(s) in. Airing his irritation via the BBC, the duo’s Jordan Stephens said of often rapped words like “fag”: “Turns of phrases take a while to die out, but when it’s vicious, I don’t understand why you’d bother. Think of something more inventive to say. It’s a cultural thing that needs to piss off, basically”.
And: “I think it’s even worse for women. I had an ex-girlfriend who was seriously up on her hip hop, and I played her this song ‘Clique’ with Jay Z, Kanye and Big Sean. The first lyric is ‘I tell a bad bitch do whatever I say’. And she just turned around and said, ‘what’s that?’ I don’t think we know any women – smart women, who you’d want to be friends with – that would proclaim themselves as a bad bitch”.
Right on. In parallel news, rapper Eminem has had to explain why it is he says “faggot” over and over on his new LP, particularly in one of its tracks ‘Rap God’, which features the phrase “gay looking” as a diss.
Claiming he doesn’t relate that kind of term to homosexuality, Shady tells Rolling Stone: “I don’t know how to say this without saying it how I’ve said it a million times. But that word, those kind of words, when I came up battle-rapping or whatever, I never really equated those words. It was more like calling someone a bitch or a punk or asshole. So that word was just thrown around so freely back then”.
“Not saying it’s wrong or it’s right, but at this point in my career – man, I say so much shit that’s tongue-in-cheek. I poke fun at other people, myself. But the real me sitting here right now talking to you has no issues with gay, straight, transgender, at all. I’m glad we live in a time where it’s really starting to feel like people can live their lives and express themselves. And I don’t know how else to say this, I still look at myself the same way that I did when I was battling and broke”.
In conclusion: “I’ve been doing this shit for, what, fourteen years now? And I think people know my personal stance on things and the personas that I create in my music. And if someone doesn’t understand that by now, I don’t think there’s anything I can do to change their mind about it.
Oh hang on, Marshall – how about you just, like, don’t use the word “faggot”?
