Why Are Rappers Acting Like Women?

I wrote not too long ago about the growing levels of emasculation we’re seeing in modern hip-hop, despite it generally being credited as part of a highly masculine culture. For all of the posing and machismo we hear about, there is an inordinate amount of feminine whining and feminine styling among this culture’s male adherents.

One of the issues I mentioned in that post related to the culture’s obsession with “snagging the bad bitch”:

Snagging “the bad bitch” is another way to show one’s manhood. Again, you can’t just bang her. You gotta talk about it, rap about it, or tape it if you can. The world needs to know that you have the girl they want. Not necessarily the girl you want, but the one that they want.

This is similar in some ways to how women often choose men based in large part on their status or ability to impress her peers. This growing internalization of female attraction cues is leading to a larger number of male groupies in the world of hip-hop, men who (like women) prioritize status and peer approval over raw physical attraction.

In short, men in this culture are showing their weakness and insecurity in their obsession with “the bad bitch” or the female with status tied to her appearance or reputation. They feel too often the need to get the girl not merely because they are men and they find her attractive, but because they need to impress other men. This is exceedingly insecure, bitch-made behavior, but it is common in this culture.

The artist Ray J has recently delivered a piece of work that embodies these concerns I spoke about then. For those who don’t know, Ray J is a 32 year old rapper/R&B singer. He’s not totally irrelevant—several years ago he delivered a top 3 certified platinum hit and has managed to see a couple of other songs and albums get some recognition. He’s also had a reality show.

The thing Ray J is most known for by laymen today, however, is probably his relationship with Kim Kardashian, which yielded the infamous sex tape.

The title of Ray J’s newest musical masterpiece? “I Hit It First”.

Alright, so I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out for you—the song is about Kim Kardashian, and how he supposedly beat everyone else to her vagina.

Let’s examine some of the lyrics:

She might move on to rappers and ballplayers
But we all know I hit it first
I hop in the club and boppers show love, and I don’t even put in work
I hit it, I hit it, I hit it, I hit it, I hit it, I hit it first
I hit it, I hit it, I hit it, I hit it, I hit it, I hit it first
…
And if you were to come back to me
Girl I know just why you’d choose me
And if you were to come back to me
Girl, I’ll get it wet — jacuzzi
And if you were to come back to me girl
We’ll make another movie

In typical Hip-hop fashion, Ray J feels the need to tout his ability to appeal to random women upon his sighting in a club. This is meant to indicate his masculinity—he’s a player, he’s a baller, blah blah blah.

And yet, at the same time, he’s writing a song about one female.

Think about this for a second. If you’re truly the kind of man who can get attractive women interested at first glance as you claim, why are you obsessing over one girl? If you’ve got fine females in your corner on a regular basis, why would you feel the need to try and brag about having had sex with just one? How is it that she could remain on your mind a decade after you hit it?

Furthermore, why would you even suggest the notion of returning to that female when you have so many young, hot “boppers in the club” that allegedly want to get at you as soon as they spot you? Kim Kardashian was 23 when the sex tape was made. She’s 32 and knocked up now with quite a bit more mileage (Reggie Bush, Kris Humphries, Mile Austin, Kanye West and a bunch of other dudes have been there since Ray), and now you want her back?

This is a perfect illustration of the emasculating nature of modern urban/hip-hop culture, which has begun to turn men into women and women into men.

The culture assigns praise to men who get with women of a certain “status”. Men then proceed to gossip and brag about their sexual conquests in a manner reminiscent of the way a young hypergamous female enters discourse with her peer group about her sexual success with an alpha male. They even proceed to feud about these conquests in a way reminiscent of the high school cat fight (though more violent). Their insecurity and neverending pursuit of validation is reminiscent of a teenage girl, yet persists well into their own adulthood (Ray J is 32).

In essence, men become those hypergamous groupies in the urban community. They catch oneitis for certain girls who have enough status to boost them in the eyes of their peers, and proceed to try and feed off of that boost whenever they do get close to those females. Ray J’s behavior is merely symptomatic of a much larger trend—it isn’t uncommon for young men in this culture to create facebook albums, twitter messages, and or their own amateur mixtapes for the purpose of letting the world know who they fucked, when they fucked her, and why it makes them special and worthy of validation.

Discretion is one of the simplest ways for women to separate the masculine chaff from the actual wheat. Truly confident, high-value men understand the expediency of maintaining a degree of privacy and exclusivity in their relationships, and don’t feel the need to completely undo that understanding in a bid to attention-whore like a bitch.

I am not saying that there are no decent masculine examples that can be drawn from modern hip-hop, but I am saying that one needs to be careful and increasingly more selective in turning to the genre as their source for these things. Despite its reputation, the culture is filled with men who behave as though they are the opposite of the confident players they claim to be, acting instead like insecure, thirsty attention whores. There’s no room for that kind of thing in the heart or mind of the man concerned with self-improvement.

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