(Photo Courtesy of Deadline.com)
“Feminism – The Woman’s Mafia” Nas via Twitter
Back in 2002, Jay Z told us on The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse that just because we don’t understand Nas, don’t mean that he’s nice. It just means that we don’t understand all the bulls**t that Nas writes. Oh Hov we understood it, it’s just why would he continue to spew his inaccuracy. Honestly, when Nas raps about history, it’s like a kid faking his way through a book report that he didn’t read. So why am I coming down on Nasir? On Twitter recently, Nas tweeted ‘Feminism – The Woman’s Mafia’. Oh really, Nas? So women wanting equality is just like an organized international body of criminals from Italy. Smarten up, Nas. And since we are on the subject of Feminism, let’s talk about the equality in Hip-Hop. What’s that? We can’t because it doesn’t exist. Oh.
First, what is Feminism? Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men. It’s a simple thing that women want. But sorry ladies you can’t have it with your Hip-Hop. Why not? As a society we praise our male rappers for saying/doing the same thing we condemn our female rappers for saying/doing. For example, Nicki Minaj released a song called “Looking A** N****s.” A song that’s basically calling men out for their tactics. The backlash from men was astonishing. I mean how many songs are out that are calling out women. Plenty. However when the tables turn all of a sudden it’s a problem. It’s what we like to call a ‘double standard.’ If Foxy Brown and Salt-N-Pepa made the female version of “Big Pimpin,” would it also be a culture phenomenon? No, most likely we would call them sluts and terrible mothers.
So how can we embrace equality within Hip-Hop? Simple, really. Lets praise and condemn these rappers equally and fairly. When the whole T.I./Azealia Banks/Iggy Azalea beef spilled all on Twitter, we were so busy tearing down Banks and lifting up T.I. that we didn’t care that T.I. jumped in a beef that had nothing to do with him. Here is a grown man ripping into a female rapper because (1) she was talking greasy about his artist and (2) she is a woman. I mean he just brushed off Gucci Mane comments about his wife, but Banks gets the semi-auto round of shots.
So back to Nasir Jones. Feminism isn’t a woman’s mafia. It’s everyone’s march on equality. It’s the movement to put the double standard sword into the stone King Arthur pulled Excalibur from. So sorry Nas, you lose again. But for fantasy purposes, if feminism is the women’s mafia, then call it Corleone. And lets say Nas is Kay Corleone. And just like Kay at the end of Godfather, Nas is just watching a door close on something he will never understand. -Pooh Bailey
