Hoes, Bitches, and the Search for Enlightened Witnesses: Gangsta Rap Lyrics and the Real Truth of Black Mother-Son Love
20 Pages Posted: 18 Sep 2014
Date Written: June 25, 2014
Abstract
This critical essay argues that gangsta rap artists, especially through their lyrics, are seeking an unconscious way to express the truth about the maltreatment that they suffered in the earliest moments or years of their lives, and they do so through their lyrics, which are filled with what i called corrosive hate and murderous anger. While their hatred and anger are directed at black women, I argue that due to "emotional blindness" (or Freud's repression), which is Alice Miller's concept, such hatred and anger are really directed at the earliest biological parents or primary caregivers who used obedience training to maltreat them when they were infants and toddlers, arguably for their own good. Unfortunately, obedience training or what Miller calls "poisonous pedagogy" destroys these highly sensitive souls, who really want to know the truth of their earliest maltreatment and to share their existential narratives with others, so that these rappers can unconsciously draw to themselves enlightened witnesses who will help their heal. Yet, this approach to healing still leaves the rappers disconnected from their deepest emotions and hence their truth, and in the end, such rappers would consciously prefer to keep their deepest truths repressed and hidden in their gangsta lyrics by which they only symbolically attack their cruel and abusive parents and caregivers while broadly demeaning all women or black women through their vilifying lyrics.
Keywords: race, gender, violence, child maltreatment, lyrics
JEL Classification: I30, I39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation