Jezebel: rap music

Barack Obama Stays Hot While We Freeze

Megan — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST

... [wipes drool]
Barack Obama is on vacation with his family in Kailua, Hawai'i this week. [Huffington Post]

Bowlers are peeved that he might turn the White House bowling alley into a basketball court. [Wall Street Journal]
He produced a web video announcing the people that will be running science policy for his Administration and not one of them believes in creationism. [Washington Post]
And Joe Biden is going to head up the White House Task Force On Working Families, but stop calling him a "Czar" of something because he is the Vice fucking President and the Obamites have famously put a kibosh on calling anyone a Czar anyway. [CNN]
Current Vice President Cheney has trouble understand that rap music stuff and would like those kids to get the hell off his lawn. [Think Progress]
Sarah Palin blames John McCain's advisers for pretty much everything. [Huffington Post]
Hillary Clinton just forgave her $13 million campaign loan, but still owes Mark Penn more than $5 million (and a host of other vendors about $1 million). [New York Times]
Toyota is about to report its first operating loss in 70 years, despite all that talk of so-called union benefits being the problem that is plaguing the U.S. auto industry. The auto bailout will nonetheless proceed apace, including the part where they reduce wages and benefits of GM and Chrysler workers. [MSNBC]

Grumpy Old Men

Maria — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:40:00 EST

This weekend, a 70-year-old man opened fire on a rap concert in the Matam region of Senegal after he felt insulted when rappers started to sing about "cranky old men." Five people were injured. [Reuters]

Are Rap Videos Turning Young Girls Into Drunken, Stoner Floozies?

Tracie — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 19:30:00 EDT

Researchers studied rap videos and found that they sexualized women, placed too much emphasis on their physical appearance and treated them more as decorative objects rather than "active agents." Uh, doesn't that hold true for most of pop culture and advertising? It's so annoying how rap and hip hop are always being called out for that, when there are plenty of equally (if not more) offensive other influences in the media. Anyway, after interviewing over 500 African-American women (ages 14-18), researchers found that the young women who spent more time watching rap videos were more likely to "binge drink, have sex with multiple partners, test positive for marijuana and have a negative body image." Is it just me, or does that just sound like the life of a majority of teen girls, regardless of race or music video preference? And sure, the negative body image stuff is always bad, but the rest of it actually sounds like tons of fun to me.

The researchers say that such behavior is influenced by rap videos and that the "glamorized depictions of alcohol use often portrayed in conjunction with sexual imagery and portrayals of drug use are often depicted as normal." Well, for some of us, it is. Especially when you're a teenager interested in experimentation. I don't necessarily believe such behavior — which the researchers labeled as "risky" — is always so bad. The study concluded that there is a "need for greater awareness and education about the risks associated with this media exposure. Maybe people need to stop worrying about sheltering girls and instead focus on teaching boys to start respecting them.

Sexy Rap Videos Suspected To Be Damaging To Young Girls [Reuters, via Feministing]