Saturday, April 14, 2007

"Just like every rapper wants the baddest video chick on his arm, so do AGs."

TwitThis

The Village Voice has an article on how young lesbians agressive's (ag's) embrace hip hop thug paradigm for the purposes of appearing hard.

When you go to the club and you're an AG, your mission that entire night is to find the baddest femme in the club and make her your girl," says another woman, who calls herself Don Vito Corleone. "Just like every rapper wants the baddest video chick on his arm, so do AGs."
I have allways had a problem with the idea of women who embrace women but take on a male persona as the main WAY of appear tough, 'bout it and handling yours.

Rap videos have long provided men of color with milestones on their journeys to manhood. From being a successful street businessman (Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ten Crack Commandments"), to learning how to treat a woman (Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit") and protecting their manhood (50 Cent's "What Up Gangsta?"), guys are told how to be indestructible, sexually assertive, and in general, badasses. The misogyny and homophobia implicit in that message has long raised the hackles of critics. Oprah Winfrey and columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. made news recently for saying "enough" to the influence of rap's rougher edges on black culture.

My problem with it is not that they do it, but that that persona is appears to be the only acceptable viable "tough, hooded up persona".


Im sure women can use their imaginations to be tough, fierce and gully in a variety of ways. No?
"These AGs have a disrespectful mentality, and they get it from men, hoodlums, dudes that are in the 'hood all day," says Kysharece Young, an AG, rapper ("Ky Fresh"), and freshman at Monroe College. "They act like a bunch of little damn boys that ain't got no sense."
The issues that face young women face young men as well.
In 2005, filmmaker Daniel Peddle chronicled the lives of AGs in his documentary The Aggressives, following six women who went to lengths like binding their breasts to pass as men. But Peddle says that today, very young lesbians of color in New York are creating a new, insular scene that's largely cut off from the rest of the gay and lesbian community. "A lot of it has to do with this kind of pressure to articulate and express your masculinity within the confines of the hip-hop paradigm," he tells the Voice.
I knew from the tone of the article that the writer, ChloƩ A. Hilliard, was either brown or had an urban history. Then I found this out about her. She was most recently and editor @ the Source (scroll down, after you click to get her article).

She is hella fresh.

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Ohhhh. Wu Tang Renunion Doc just came out.
I can't go.

But somebody needs to go and tell me about it.

Dude.

This right here is worth seeing it:

Capturing onstage and off with equal energy — at one point only the inspired freestyling of artists like Redman and MC Supernatural stand between Mr. Weisberg and an all-out riot — “Rock the Bells” is a fascinating glimpse of a dreamer and a music culture that has always depended on dreams.
ROCK THE BELLS

Opens today in Manhattan.

Directed by Casey Suchan and Denis Henry Hennelly; directors of photography, Jeff Bollman and Leif Johnson; music by J. Force; produced by Kurt Dalton and Henry Lowenfels; released by Seventh Art Releasing. At the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East Third Street, at Avenue A, East Village. Running time: 103 minutes.

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Think imma lay of the posting for a min. Unless.

Um. Unless something de.lic.ious happens.

Baby on the right kinda bad.

I planned on posting this last week.

But I got Imus'd.

On a more curious note. I wonder what the Jesse, Al and Oprah would
think of these women?

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