Colorism in Hip Hop
I am an avid fan of hip hop and rap. Beautiful music has been made through powerful rap songs telling stories of struggle, empowerment and resilience. Some of these legendary songs have been produced by artists such as Tupac, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Beyonce, Janelle Monae, and J.Cole, just to name a few. On the blog Colorism Healing, there is an article that delves into the issue of colorism in hip hop. It discusses that while hip hop and rap can be empowering and progressive, it can also be sexist and colorist, glorifying white and light-skinned black women's bodies and diminishing dark skinned women. Many rap music videos exclude dark skinned women entirely. This yet again positions european features as the ideal feminine beauty.
Some examples of this sexualization and focus on light skin black women as sex objects can be found in Nelly's song "Its Hot in Herre." The video shows mostly light skin black women taking their clothes off, closing up on their body parts and using them as purely sexual objects for the male gaze.
Some artists, such as Kendrick Lamar, have chosen to take a stand against this injustice to black women. Lamar intentionally casted the leading lady in his "Poetic Justice video as a dark skinned black woman to represent her skin tone.
The oversexualization of black women in America is a whole other issue but relates to the issue of colorism and racism because it is another way of commodifying black female bodies, using them for entertainment, and valuing certain shades of black over others for these oversexualizing roles. This kind of oversexualization happens to women of color in a different way than it happens to white women. An article by Zuleyka Zevallo on Other Sociologist discusses the problem of white artists such as Taylor Swift using black bodies in a very strategic and narrow way. For example, in one of her music videos, Shake it Off, Taylor Swift positions herself awkwardly between twerking black bodies which highlights her purity and whiteness.
Hip Hop, Colorism and Misogyny
A comprehensive article written by Andre G published in Impose magazine highlights a notorious example of colorism in hip hop, when Kanye West announced his launch of Yeezy Season 4 and his casting for "multi-racial women only," aka light skin black women. This received much backlash including a spot on tweet by one user which asked "Does that include the dark skinned multiracial women or just the light skinned ones?"At the Manhatten Yeezy Season casting one woman demonstrated with the words "they want black features but not black girls"written on her chest and stomach.
Kanye West isn't the only rapper to exclude dark skin black women. Kodak Black had an unrealeased song lyric that went "I don't want no black bitch, I'm already black."Jay Z stated "all the wavy light-skinned girls [was] loving me" after he started drug dealing on "December 4th."
Hip hop's obsession with racially ambiguous, exotic, lighter skinned women's bodies can take a toll on black women. The fetishization of their bodies is not done out of honor but misogynoir. Rapper Lil Kim once admitted "all my life, men have told me I wasn’t pretty enough.” She also disclosed her exes left her for "european looking" women. Lil Kim is not the only one impacted by colorism and eurocentrism. A skin lightening promotion website titled skin light skin bright claimed Nicki Minaj has been known to get expensive skin lightening treatments done. We don't see the same trend happening with male rappers because women are held to different beauty standards. I also don't believe it is a coincidence that the two most prominent female rappers at the time happen to be light skin black women who are extremely sexualized. Cardi B and Nicki Minaj are light skin black women who are highly sexualized in the world of rap. They are also extremely successful and receive a lot of publicity. Rap is a male dominated field so for women to be validated as true artists, so I believe sexualization is misogyny's way of getting them there. Also, being light skin black women allows them to slide by the eurocentric beauty standards thrusted upon non-white women. This is not to say these women do not have talent, because they do. But the entertainment industry and racist white imagination values them for different reasons outside of their music.
