Coleman Hughes: belief

Transcript context

…Men talking about women in a way that many women would find very objectionable. I think it’s higher in black hip-hop than white hip-hop, but feel free to contradict me. Yes, I would agree it’s higher in black hip-hop. I was always amused when I was in college that there was a very intense variety of feminism around, but some of those same women would go to, say, a Trippie Redd concert or an XXXTentacion concert and hear some of the most brutally misogynist lyrics that have ever been written in any song, without any contradiction [laughs]. There was, I guess, this unspoken sense that if you’re a black man, it’s OK to say those things, or that it’s not really meant, or that who cares. Whereas if a white artist had said the same thing, there would be a bevy of articles the next day. I’m not exactly sure what is behind that trend, but I have to think that the success of someone like Drake is partly because he bucks that trend. Like, women love Drake. Drake is the most popular rapper to ever exist. I think one thing that makes him popular is the very fact that he was squarely within the tradition and school, being a disciple of Lil Wayne — the school that said the worst possible things, the most dismissive, misogynist possible things. He was accepted and loved at that school, but the route he went was to say things — to make music for women. To say things that were sweet to women. Not to say that that’s all he says, but he really bucked the trend and in that sense was vulnerable to the critique that he was soft and feminine, which is the greatest possible sin, you would think, in the rap world, but actually led to the greatest possible success. In the 19th century, it seems that Beethoven and also Queen Victoria were especially popular with a lot of black communities in the United States. Should we think that strange, or you find that intuitive?…

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