Am I a Bad Feminist because I like Hip Hop?

I am a feminist. An all out, through and through, card-carrying feminist. I'll do a post sometime about what being a feminist means to me but I think most people that know me would definitely agree that I'm quick to adopt a feminist stance in conversations. I also love hip hop music, or at least some hip hop. Sometimes though, I find myself singing along to some song, when slowly the lyrics sink in and I realise that what I'm singing goes against everything I believe in, and often, it's songs I really love. Why does hip hop have to be so ... so ... I'm leaning towards using the word ‘misogynistic’ but I don't think that's accurate. Most rappers don't hate women, it's more that they tend to put them in a tiny box; basically, in hip hop, women are hos, possessions, sex objects, gold diggers; basically a whole lot of unfavourable nouns. You'd think Snoop and Biggy never came across smart, intelligent, independent women. In fact, speaking of Snoop, listen to these words straight from the horse's (so to speak) mouth:

“[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about ho’s that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing sh–, that’s trying to get a n—a for his money. These are two separate things."

Let's say Snoop has a point - he doesn't, but for the sake of being fair, let's just say he does - If he dislikes those kinds of girls so much, why doesn't he stop rapping about them or at the very least stop sleeping with them and surrounding himself with girls just like them? And has he never met a female lawyer, entrepreneur manager, publicist? Has he never met a non ho-ey woman? Unless he lives in a box, the answer to those questions is yes. So why doesn't he rap about them instead?

To be fair though, if I don't like it, I don't have to listen to it. But you see, therein lies my dilemma. I love a lot of songs that the feminist in me is very opposed to. Let's take 'Nasty Girl' by Biggy and 112. There are few songs guaranteed to get me on the dance floor more than this song but when I first heard it, I couldn't help cringing every time I heard the words 'All my ladies if you feel me grab your titties for B.I.G'. Seriously. Why? And the rest of the lyrics of the song aren't much better either. I'm not saying don't rap about sex, a lot of R&B is about sex, they've just mastered the art of making it ... tasteful, for want of a better word. It's less crude, slightly more subtle and a whole lot less insulting.

There are way too many songs which I personally take offence to but the one that really gets to me at the moment, the song that was the inspiration for this post and (unfortunately) a song I quite like is the 'I'm a Flirt' remix by R.Kelly, T.I and T-Pain. For anyone who hasn't heard it, it's basically R.Kelly saying he is a flirt and warning guys everywhere that if he meets/sees their girlfriends, he's going to flirt with them, and the R.Kelly chat up lines are obviously so persuasive that the guy is probably going to leave without his girlfriend. In his own words, the 'moral of the story is cuff yo bitch, cuz hey I'm black, handsome, I sing plus I'm rich (and I'm a flirt).’

This I take huge offence to. He's not even differentiating between different kinds of women, he's basically assuming that if I was in a club with my boyfriend and he was there, I'd be like 'oooh, oooh, baby, it's R.Kelly, it's R.Kelly. Let's go over and talk to him pleeaaassse' and then if he decided to make my night by sleazing on me, I'd go all giggly, toss my hair, turn to boyfriend and say 'don't wait around for me hunny bun, Robert here is going to give me a ride home'. Puhleeze! Even just writing that, I've had to revert to some bimbo stereotype because I honestly can't imagine that he's talking about any of the sort of women I know.

So to recap, I like hip hop but I find a lot of the lyrics insulting. I'm admitting that I'm aware of the double standard so please if I happen to bump into any of you out one fine night/morning, and I happen to be dancing to 'Smack that', please don't tap me on the shoulder and say 'oh, didn't you say in that post....' I'm not saying there aren't women out there who even I have occasionally used the words 'bitch' or 'gold digger' to refer to, I'm simply saying they're not the only women in the world and I'm pretty they aren't the only women most hip hop artists come in contact with so why are they the only ones we hear about?

I want to point out that my hip hop taste is pretty commercial and also not the most extensive, so if this doesn't apply to all hip hop artists, I'm more than happy to hear about the exceptions!