Hip hop music often refers to women as bitches, hoes, sluts, and other hurtful names that don't make any sense. The music industry uses foul language mainly because it sells records. The problem is that the lyrics being used in songs not only takes away credibility from the artist, but it shows people of all ages that women are the best target to direct foul language towards. By degrading women rappers are able to show their fans that they are dominant and that they can say whatever they want because they are big, rich, and famous. Often times in media women have been abused, and degraded by those who have the most power to change the way people think. Instead of changing the way people degrade women, hip hop artists are increasing the negative stigma that already exists throughout the media. The song "girl you stank" by, Soulja Boy could be one of the most degrading and insulting songs ever directed towards women. The song starts out by saying "girl you stank" "Take a Bath"15 times in a row. The fact that the chorus itself says girl you stank take a bath implies a very insulting message. Not only did Soulja Boy start his song off like this but, he says it in a way like he has sad this to women in real life. His fans and followers like this song simply because it is very insulting towards women. After the chorus lines rapper Lil Rab paints a gross picture of him and rapper Soulja Boy picking up women. The rappers take the women back to their mansions and have sex with them. Before they are done having sex they describe the women as "being all musky and smelling like shit". The odors that have developed during the sex scene have made the rappers tell the women to "put back on ya clothes" and take a bath. Soulja Boy and Lil Rab have painted a picture that women will have sex with a rapper when they first meat. This portrays women as sexually voracious and unable to control their sexual emotions towards anyone who has power in the rap community. Second the song lyrics show how women are willing to have sex at anytime, while the man waits around to tell her to leave because she smells bad. Sex is suppose to be a planned out, special moment in someones life. Soulja Boy shows kids of all ages that girls smell during sex, and that they need to take a bath when he is done with them. The line "pull your pants up girl you smell like a garbage can" shows that Soulja Boy is labeling women as having a genital area that smells like garbage. Soulja Boy is showing young boys all over the world that women are not only smelly, but that their hygiene is as poor as a so called "garbage can". This song represents men as being attractive and dominant while women are represented as gross and disgusting. Overall this song shows how hip hop artists continue to build on the negative stigma directed at women in music. " A common misrepresentation of women involved the madonna versus the whore"(Mayne, 1995). This too me shows that women are misrepresented because if someone famous says something powerful the entire community of listeners may relate them to something that is not true. In this case women are said to "stank like shit", since Soulja Boy claims this then the community of listeners may believe this too be true.
According to Kellner their are "structural limits as too what can and cannot be said" when talking about production (Kellner, 1979). When studying Kellner I realized that there were no limits as to what could have been said during the creating of this song. The insulting language being used to degrade women is the artifact that is being used to convey a certain Message. When Kellner discussed artifacts these song lyrics relate because the only thing that can be taken away from this video as an artifact is the way soulja boy tells women that they stink and to take a bath. It's clear that this was the main idea of Soulja boy. The Political Economy shows how this song was written "Primarily towards profit"(Kellner, 1979). It's clear that the song lyrics were written in such a raunchy manner to gain popularity among viewers. It's not every day that you hear a song like this! When large corporations are controlling what is said they may not change anything even if it is insulting because it makes money at the expense of laughing at someone else. The analysis of the text that is said in this song shows me how to "investigate the creation of meaning"(Kellner, 1979). Not only does this song mean what its lyrics are stating but, it shows that women are a target to make corporations large profits by degrading the female race.
http://www.songlyrics.com/soulja-boy/girl-u-stank-take-a-bath-lyrics/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn3fUE4x6ho
Works Cited
Kellner, D. (1979). Cultural Studies Multiculturalism
and Media Culture.
Mayne, J. (1995 ). Women Representation in Culture.
