Out of all the people Amanda Bynes has had something negative to say about on Twitter, Drake was probably one of the only ones she seemed to have love for–in one way or another. If you’ll recall, Bynes so eloquently said on Twitter that she would like Drake to “murder my vagina.” He never responded of course, because he had better things to do (like wearing Timbs with sweat shorts and Dada ensembles). I’m guessing she took his silence personally, because three months later, she’s changed her tune. She no longer wants to hop in the sack with Drizzy Drake, and in fact, she all of a sudden doesn’t even find him attractive:

“Drake has the ugliest smile, ugly gums uneven teeth ugly eyes.”

According to the Daily Mail, soon after posting the message she tried to backtrack and delete it, but you know that once something hits the Internet, it’s out there for good.  She later decided to get “big” and state that she did indeed call the famous rapper an ug mug. ’I won’t deny calling @drake ugly.’

Per the usual, we’ve heard no response from Drake, who unlike other rappers (a la, Waka Flocka Flame and Gucci Mane), realizes that there is no use in entertaining the embattled actress. Bynes tried to call Drake ugly in the past after she propositioned him to “murder” her ladybits, but changed her tune again, saying she loved his “far apart eyes.” Until Bynes is ready to sit down and get some help, I guess she’ll just continue to take aim at any and everybody on Twitter in between visits to court and getting plastic surgery. Dang Amanda, what happened…?

itsbongoboy.com

Junior year of high school I refused to buy “Doggystyle,” the revolutionary Snoop Dogg album that set my school abuzz. It was an informal boycott based on the album’s ethos and subject matter – a seemingly nonstop celebration of decadence, violence and promiscuity. My stance lasted for about a month. Then I caved and bought the CD, listened to it faithfully for the rest of the year and kept it in regular rotation thereafter. Musically, it was near-perfect, and even if I disagreed with what Snoop was saying, I couldn’t bring myself to dislike the way he was saying it.

And so we come to my central dilemma with hip-hop, a complicated love/hate relationship that finds me scolding myself for enjoying music – on the surface, at least – that often clashes with my personal values.

Case in point: Last year, I bought the ringtone to Waka Flocka Flame’s “No Hands” against my own better judgment. The song concentrates exclusively on watching a stripper remove her panties — sans hands. At one point in the song, he even talks about running a train on a female.

But there’s that monstrous, gargantuan beat from Drumma Boy, and that captivating chorus from Roscoe Dash that turns women into sex objects but manages to entrance a self-respecting woman who should know better. I would be appalled by the excitement I feel when this song comes on in the club if I wasn’t so busy dancing. It’s only afterwards that I’m left feeling guilty and ashamed, like I just ate a carton of ice cream while watching “Jersey Shore” reruns.

It’s a similar situation with Lil Jon’s “Get Low.” Although the entirety of the song deals with females bending over and shaking their asses while Lil Jon and his posse of Eastside Boyz spew vulgarities and implore women to drop it to the floor, I essentially become a woman possessed when I hear this in the club; I’m liable to burn off my entire daily caloric intake before the song is over.

And then there’s Weezy. I appreciate Lil Wayne’s wordplay, but I often feel the need to shower after listening to his songs, which typically involve lewd descriptions of random sexual relations with some female, somewhere. “Now jump up on that d— and do a full split” Weezy instructs on “She Will.” Thanks, but she won’t be doing that anytime soon.

In spite of myself, I love Young Jeezy’s “I Luv It,” a song that revolves around drug dealing and its so-called financial rewards. I also love Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin.” I don’t want to ever not love it. I don’t want to overthink it to the point that I can’t enjoy the song. But at what point do I draw the line, say enough is enough, and decide not to sing along while rappers call us b—–s and h—s, glorify destructive lifestyles and turn the very real social ill of pimping into a punchline?

Am I supposed to excuse, for example, Clipse’s morally bankrupt tales of cocaine-slinging because they’re lyrically brilliant, and because I personally understand the conditions that leave black men feeling like drug dealing is their only escape from poverty?

Hip-hop is my favorite genre of music. Always has been, and probably always will be. While R&B from the late ‘60s and ‘70s spoke to the promise of a post-Civil Rights culture enjoying new freedoms, hip-hop was the outgrowth of broken promises, of crack-infested inner cities realizing that while old forms of oppression had fallen away, new ones had taken their place, and they often came from within: the pimp, the pusher, the player, seemingly inescapable cycles of violence and poverty.

I have defended hip-hop early and often, spouting its virtues to relatives who only know hip-hop as a Nelly song, or jazz music professors who deem it universally “aggressive” and don’t understand that rap music is, in fact, a direct outgrowth of jazz, and aggressive content is only one aspect of a much larger, more nuanced picture. I’ve spent hours explaining, educating and making and listening  to suggestions of those who think hip-hop is comprised entirely of promiscuous criminals and weed-smoking thugs.

But I’m tired of having to defend hip-hop. Tired of having to serve as a rap-to-real world translator for people who simply don’t understand the culture and see only its top layer. Tired of realizing that more and more, mainstream hip-hop is becoming that one-dimensional portrait of a black criminal or a self-absorbed hedonist, a misogynistic caricature that record companies and radio stations seem all too happy to depict and rappers seem all too willing to embody in exchange for a paycheck.

I love what hip-hop stands for in its essence: freedom, self-expression, the will to fight and overcome oppression. It emerged as the culture of the forgotten and the disenfranchised, the voice of a people that previously had none. It is the purest form of urban journalism: Chuck D of Public Enemy once called it the Black CNN.

I love hip-hop’s rhythm and its cadence, its wit and its charm, its anger and its defiance, its boldness and its swagger. I will continue to blast “Doggystyle” from my car speakers as I glide down the highway and rap gleefully along with every word. I just wish I didn’t have to temporarily stash my values on a shelf in the process.

Ladies, do you have a love/hate relationship with hip-hop? Let us know in the comments.

Lauren Carter is a writer, blogger and hip-hop head from Boston. Follow her on Twitter @ByLaurenCarter.

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“I don’t see it.” That’s exactly what I say each time the following names are brought up in a conversation about hot men in Hollywood. While many women, even followers of this site, swear up and down that these brothas are delicious and could “get it,” I’m always reading their comical comments, scratching my head and thinking, “Wow…really?” I’m a fan of most of these individuals, but you won’t see me throwing my panties at the computer screen for ‘em. But hey, whatever floats your boat, right?

Source: Esquire

Jay-Z

Ever since Beyoncé upgraded this brotha, people have been saying for years that he’s got it going on. Got what going on and in what way you ask? I can’t say 100 percent, but you can probably blame it on June Ambrose who made him re-evaluate his fashion choices, and the business sense he cultivated on his own, which helped him reach an audience outside regular hip-hop fans, invest in NBA teams, push a fashion label, be the head at Def Jam for a while and more. That in turn helped him rake in more and more money, and a lot of women find a man good with money to be attractive. For the most part, he seems to be a pleasant and sweet character, especially when he’s with his lady and baby girl. But all that talk of “Jay is looking good as hell right now!” just because he put a fitted cap on evades me…

Waka Flocka Flame, trap-rap superstar and possessor of one of the worst names in hip-hop history, believes in going Hard in the Paint – for the ethical treatment of animals, that is.

Yes that’s right. Mr. Ole Do it (Oh, Let’s Do it) has just been signed as a spokesperson for PETA’s (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) new celebrity activist campaign, “Ink Not Mink.” Flame, born Juaquin Malphurs, is certainly taking his new position seriously; recently, he stated in an interview with XXL Magazine, “animals should be treated the same as you would a kid. Would you want someone just to walk up and skin your kid? Hell no!”

Good point.

However, the skeptical side of me initially believed that perhaps this newfound kinship with God’s furry little creatures was nothing more than a publicity stunt meant to defer attention away from his admitted lack of lyricism and his embarrassing appearance on BET when he boorishly declared that, among other things, “Education Good.”

But a quick Google Image search didn’t turn up any pictures of Flame in fur coats or hats, which could possibly mean that this is a legit cause for him. Waka will now join a short list of black celebrities who have embraced the animal rights movement in some shape or fashion, including Alice Walker, Russell Simmons, Dexter Scott King, Angela Bassett and Miss Black USA Elizabeth Muto.

Hmm, Waka Flocka Flame and Alice Walker in the same sentence? I never thought I would see that happening.

Nevertheless, Flame isn’t the only black celebrity freshly tapped by PETA.  Taraji Henson recently posed nude for PETA’s signature campaign, “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur.” According to Henson, among her reasons for lending her own flesh to the campaign was a belief that suffering and fur goes hand in hand. She explained to PETA, what if someone said, ‘Black skin is the new fur?’”

When comes to advocating for the ethical treatment of animals, blacks on the grassroots level are noticeably missing. When it comes to issues that blacks are most willing to fight for, animal rights are somewhere on the bottom of the list. This is why this campaign by PETA is very interesting, because it seems willing to address the unspoken question of why such a noble cause as ending unethical treatment of animals is devoid of people of color.

Part of the disconnect has to do with the philosophy of the practitioners of animal rights, who stress that the battle for animal rights is akin to human rights campaigns such as ending slavery and the black civil rights movement.

But for many African Americans, who continue to struggle immensely to prove their own humanity, there is a sentiment that the suffering of animals evokes more empathy from white folks than does the suffering of black people. Moreover, the history of oppression that our ancestors faced has been hijacked to promote an agenda, which seems to reinforce the notion of just how trivial our humanity remains to the rest of society.