Young Black Women & Hiphop Culture: Everywhere & Nowhere

Description

The focus in hip-hop culture and media on the Black female posterior is eerily reminiscent of the 1820s Venus Hottentot. Back then in the name of science, a European doctor, awestruck by Khosian (of South Africa) women’s posteriors and genitalia, paid one of the Black women to travel to England then France with him as a specimen for display and study as the “Hottentot Venus.” Even though today’s video hotties appear to have been initiated by Black men and co-signed by Black women themselves, the predominance of such representations again circulates the Black female body and sexuality in a de-humanizing manner with far-reaching consequences. Analyzing the logic and practices of mass media industries and hip-hop culture, this book outlines how 21st century Venus Hottentots (female rappers and hip-hop video performers) are the complex construct of hip-hop culture’s adaptation of marketplace logic wherein “booty” is capital. Many record labels and male recording artists, like the 19th century European colonizing explorers, are mining Black females’ bodies in the name of profit. Most popular female rappers and video performers, like the Khosian woman from South Africa, are “willingly” acting as commodities. In this book, I argue that acknowledging the historical weight of the Venus Hottentot image is NOT an unwarranted imposition of some original image’s aura onto all expressions of Black female sexuality. Indeed, its historical weight has persisted for centuries and festers underneath mainstream cultural discourses about Black women. This book reviews young Black women’s hope and beauty. Keywords: audience reception, hip-hop culture, rap music, industry practices