Linguistic reclamation is the phenomenon of a group taking a derogatory term that is used against them, flipping its meaning, then embracing it.
“Queer” has gone through such a transformation. For some, the N-word, co-opted by young black men as a term of endearment, is another. Even “redneck,” as sung by country music stars, has been recast as an expression of pride.
The psychology behind it is that if you can reverse the meaning, a potential verbal weapon has been defused.
Rappers have flipped lots of terms, but they’ve also reconstructed words into alternate, parallel definitions in which the meaning is skewed.
“Thug,” “gangsta” and “Mafia” come to mind. Rappers are exaggerating a criminal past to appear ominous. But two words are particularly repugnant: “pimps” and “hos.” (“Ho” is shorthand for “whore.”) Those terms teach youth to think sex is inherently dysfunctional.
In a time when the lyrics of so many commercial rap songs seem virtually identical, you have to wonder if rappers are trying to be creative or offering the recording industry recycled goods.
Here’s a sample lyric from Busta Rhymes’ “Touch It,” the No. 6 song on the Billboard rap charts:
“Then I beat up the coochie and be makin’ it swell. … Then they try to walk with a strut so no one could tell how a (guy) got in their butt, made everything gel.”
In a majority of the top-selling rap songs, women are cast as leeches deserving of mistreatment. They are used for sex, sometimes in rough manner, then discarded. Some rappers even brag that they share their women with friends.
They sound eerily similar to pimps.
When the Three 6 Mafia won an Oscar last week for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” it reminded me how far the music has come since the days when C. DeLores Tucker railed against the music industry for promoting misogynistic music that glorifies violence.
The song won because it encapsulated the theme of the movie, but the lyrics cheer a lifestyle of abuse. Where is the remorse?
Besides, it’s not hard to be a pimp; try life as a prostitute.
Yet we have rappers who fashion themselves as pimps, dressing like something out of the movie “Shaft.” Women are accessories, not just in music videos, but when they arrive, two or three women to an arm, at events.
The message it sends to young women scares me.
Ten years ago, when Tucker was making headlines, I was among those young hip-hop lovers who dismissed her as a conservative old lady who wanted to suppress the only forum disaffected young men had.
I later realized she was right, because young listeners are so impressionable.
Today, music is everywhere: streamed on Internet radio, downloaded free from shareware sites, blaring from tiny MP3 players and on mobile phones. It means there are more opportunities for the toxic messages to seep in.
It explains why a seventh-grade girl told me last year that a bully called her a whore. It’s the reason why a 10-year-
old boy I recently met didn’t blink when he offered his e-mail address, which included “junior” and “pimp.”
Neither of those kids, by the way, is black. Remember that the Recording Industry Association of America reports that white children purchase upward of 60 percent of all rap music.
Those kids are being programmed via music produced by kids who don’t know what they’re producing. And if record labels won’t take the lead and be responsible, it’s up to ordinary people like us.
Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Thursdays in Scene. Contact her at 303-820-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.
