The Nappy Diatribe

Believe it or not, Hillary Clinton and Female MCs Have a Lot in Common

Posted 06/08/2007 at 10:26 PM  |  4 comment/s

Looking back on it now it's sort of silly, but back when I was in High School nothing put the fear of god in me more than becoming a teenage parent - a phobia that only surpasses my current fear of heights, clowns, and Tyler Perry sitcoms. Sure my parents added to said fear: my usually calm and collected mother made it seem like having a kid in High School was akin to a death sentence - and my old man wasn't any better, he had me thinking that I'd have to quit school and work in a God-damned coal mine if I ever procreated around the same time that I received my driver's license. Not only that, but the exact same way an overweight woman might feel a little funny about receiving things like low fat milk-shakes and stair-masters as Christmas Gifts - getting a lifetime supply of condoms from your parents is all kinds of wrong, man, especially when my mother would point to the box and say, "See honey, it's ribbed for her pleasure, with a spermicidal tip no less!!" But the main reason that I didn't want to have a child while I simultaneously struggled with Trigonometry had to do with John Hughes.

Yes, "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club," "Weird Science," "Pretty in Pink," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - that John Hughes. See, before I became an adult and couldn't get through any of the aforementioned movies without screaming, "Don't black people go to High School, John!!" at my television screen, I worshiped these movies as if they were the holy fucking grail. I just knew that his flicks were the template of High School life to come, teenage angst, mischief, and bittersweet moments where I know I'm falling in love when "The Thompson Twins" or Paul Young play in the background while I passionately kiss the "diamond in the ruff" band nerd. A bratty fucking crumb-snatcher wasn't going to jeopardize that, or me skipping a day of school that I'd remember for a lifetime, a life altering Saturday detention where I bond with four complete strangers - and I'd be damned if fatherhood would interfere with me making a woman out of magazine cut-outs and Lil Kim lyric sheets via my computer. A robotic sex slave of sorts, someone to give such ignorantly sloppy oral sex that with my eyes closed I'd be damned if I didn't accidentally clone Fantasia.

So I did whatever I could to prevent me bringing another chubby writer into this world, everything from dry-humping like a madman to wearing three condoms at a time during sex, only letting a girl give me a hand-job to me acting as if she should feel grateful being allowed to put her mouth on me - we won't even go into how many times I chose an alternate hole during sex - so much in fact that I'd randomly have my sexuality questioned mid-coitus. What were supposed to be the best years of my life became 3 1/2 years of paranoia and me causing most of the girls in my High School class to walk like seasoned cowboys. That was until one of my best friends, John, had a child out of wedlock during our senior year. I'm aware that John was probably the exception, I can only imagine how hard it is to be a teenage parent nowadays - but the way he juggled his newborn daughter, his honor classes, and the random teenage dalliances - it made me use two less condoms and go the vaginal approach during sex from that point on.

Raising his daughter (Kelly) hasn't been a picnic for John over the last 17 years, but his parental journey has been less turbulent compared to other parents based on their shared love for Hip Hop - a gift Kelly exhibited as a young child, free-styling to music even before she knew what impromptu rhyming was. Since then John and I have been on some "My Two Dads" shit(minus the homoerotic undertones mind you), grooming her to be the best MC the world has ever known - whether it was me having her throw a ball up in the air and catching it on beat while rhyming to perfect her flow, or her old man having her battle-rhyme him every day after she finished her homework. We had her reading dictionaries, watching "Wild Style" with the same intensity that Christians watched "Passion of the Christ," and filling her subconscious with all of the '80s-era Hip Hop that the both of us owned. It wasn't like we were pushing her either, she'd love to tell me how she lyrically took some sucker out at school - proceeding to recite the exact simile that rocked that other rapper's feeble little world. She was good - fuck that - she was great - with an awesome voice, wordplay, punchlines, a strong presence on the mic, and with her ability to tell stories I just knew that what we were witnessing was a legend in the making.

That was until the last couple of months or so, as I've seen her kamikaze flow that's usually uninterested in the collateral damage that it caused suddenly be extremely dumbed down without any particularly rhyme or reason. An aggressive flow with battle rhymes that could embarrass a person so bad that their forefathers felt the shame on their plantation, became wasted bars about hand-bags and other other materialism that I usually loathe. Kelly is a beautiful young girl who only lesbians would think was gay only through wishful thinking, turned an already acceptable image into coming across like an uber fake supermodel in desperate need of a sandwich. I still love Kelly, I'd absolutely die for that kid if I had to - but I can't lie and say that I'm not disappointed, but I chose not to address her newfound rap style because I knew exactly what was going on here.

Its the same thing that is going on with Hillary Clinton, her current run for the presidency mirrors the issues that female MCs have been going through ever since someone first decided to plug a sound system into a light pole. Even though I'm an Obama guy thus far, it was sort of painful watching Mrs. Clinton's mannerisms during the Democratic debate this past week - you could see her unfortunately working from a script in her head, trying to act a certain way according to how the public would want a female candidate to act. Against her better judgment and her qualifications, I'm sure that she was told only to look forceful during national security topics, because consistently acting that way might turn off potential voters based on her gender - which is unfortunate.

The same way it's been unfortunate to see female MC after female MC feel the need to either dumb down their lyrics, sex it up for the mindless masses, or both over the years. I'm not particularly a fan of Da Brat, but remember that cringeworthy period in her career when she tried to come across like a sultry sex kitten? (That seemed as natural as an oral bowel movement.) The recent "sexification" of Remy Ma, people love that shit but I always felt that "Roughneck" was MC Lyte dumbing herself down as well - theres a million examples of women feeling the need to cave to a knuckle-dragging record consumer. Listen, I understand the whole "they have to eat" argument, I really do - I just wish that our nation didn't consist of a bunch of low-self esteem having bottom feeders, men unable to deal with strong and aggressive women because it would remind them of their already unimpressive penis. All of us men out here have to collectively grow a pair, for Kelly's sake, for the future state of women in Hip Hop, even for Hillary's sake - if Mrs. Clinton indeed becomes our 44th president, she should be able to be tough as nails and not give a shit about how it looks to a bunch of emasculated assholes.

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