00:05One thing I really want to say, and I want to make this very clear to all my viewers
00:10out there, I love hip-hop.
00:16I grew up with Big Daddy Kane, you know, the Jungle Brothers, Tribe Called Quest, De La
00:21Soul, Kwame, whoever you want to talk about in hip-hop, I listen to their music, I party
00:27to their music, I listen to hip-hop to this day.
00:32I sometimes feel bad for criticizing hip-hop, but I guess what I'm trying to do is to get
00:38us men to just take a hard look at ourselves.
00:42So I raised money, bought a video camera, hired a film crew, and began my journey to examine
00:49the representations of manhood in hip-hop culture.
01:03Some of the young people in hip-hop are focusing in on the very deployment of the gun as the
01:09paraphernalia of masculinity, as the very symbol of what it means to be a real man.
01:13Violent masculinity is at the heart of American identity.
01:16If you're a young man growing up in this culture and the culture is telling you that being a
01:20man means being powerful, being dominant, being in control, having the respect of your peers,
01:24but you don't have a lot of real power, well one thing that you do have access to is your
01:29body and your ability to present yourself, you know, physically as somebody who's worthy
01:34of respect.
01:35And I think that's one of the things that accounts for a lot of the hyper-masculine posturing
01:38by a lot of young men of color and a lot of working-class white guys as well.
01:43You talk about killing brothers like it ain't nothing.
01:45You know what I'm saying?
01:46Not just you, but a lot of brothers, you know what I'm saying?
01:49Do you watch movies?
01:50Yeah.
01:50What kind of movies do you watch?
01:53Good question.
01:55I mean, if you watch Hollywood movies, you see the same kind of violence, the same kind
01:59of hyper-masculine violence perpetuated in movie after movie after movie.
02:04In sports culture, video games, military culture, I mean, America is a very hyper-masculine, hyper-aggressive
02:14nation.
02:16We're going to smoke them out.
02:18So it stands to reason that a rapper like 50 Cent can be commercially viable in a nation
02:24that supports a culture of violence.
02:26You attend a controversy surrounding rap artist Nelly led to an emotional meeting at Spelman
02:31College tonight.
02:32The discussion focused on hip-hop videos and how they portray women.
02:36I said it must be ass, cause it ain't your face, I need a tip hole, I need a tip
02:40hole.
02:41In the video, Nelly is seen swiping his credit card down a woman's backside.
02:45This man is so important and so powerful.
02:48And these women, conversely, are so dime a dozen, or I guess a dime for two dozen, you know, if
02:54there's 24 women standing around, that they don't matter, they're just eye candy, they're
02:58worthless.
02:59You have any problem with rappers calling women bitches and hoes and stuff like that?
03:03Nah, cause to tell you the truth, some of them is bitches, see?
03:05It's not really directed towards you personally, it's just what they saying, sex sells.
03:11I think a bitch is a bitch.
03:12It's funny when I hear women say, when these rappers are calling women bitches and hoes,
03:16they're not talking about me.
03:18It's like, yo, they are talking about you.
03:20If George Bush was to get on national TV and make a speech, and he started calling black
03:25people niggas, would you be like, I don't know who George Bush is talking about, but
03:29he ain't talking about me?
03:30Are you that funky, dirty, money hungry, scandalous, stuck up, hairpiece, contact wearing bitch?
03:36Yep, you probably are.
03:39You know, all these things that you hear all of the time in hip hop, you hear it all of
03:43the time and it goes unrecognized and unchecked because it's so normalized.
03:48I'm dealing with homophobia in hip hop, right?
03:51Homophobic lyrics and things like that.
03:54I can't partake in that conversation, Holmes.
03:57That homo shit that you're talking about?
04:00Yeah.
04:00I can't even talk to you about that.
04:01The only way that you can be a man, a black man, a Latino man, is to be hard, you
04:06know what
04:07I'm saying, to denigrate women, to denigrate homosexuals, to denigrate each other, to kill
04:11each other.
04:12There's something wrong with that.
04:1370% of the buying community now is a white community.
04:16The white people want to hear that killing ever.
04:19It appeals to our sense of learning about other cultures and wanting to know more about
04:24something that we'll never probably experience.
04:26It's my style.
04:27I mean, you guys, colored people can say that.
04:32It's their music, but I can get down to it just as much as they can.
04:36Who are you, man?
04:37Did you just say colored people?
04:40To a slave?
04:52Oh, and you.
04:54I'm unlocksIt's time to say 1984 Luego.
