The curriculum studies field has much to gain from an analysis of black women rappers texts. The knowledge black women rappers offer through their songs is worthy of study in schooling spaces and is too valuable for educators to continue to ignore if they want to become better teachers. Through their lyrics, black women rappers situate themselves in a public context and construct texts that represent young black womens complex identities. Black women rappers create a space in hip hop discourse from which their stories enrich and complicate the public conversation about the representation of black womens identities. This study of black women rappers representations, which builds on and extends the scholarship of curriculum theorists who write about popular culture and pedagogy, is an examination of the song lyrics of eight mainstream contemporary black women rappers: Missy Misdemeanor Elliott, Eve, Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Trina, Mia X, Da Brat, and Queen Pen. This study is an effort to enable teachers to understand the critiques black women rappers make about young black womens experiences, deconstruct black women rappers representations of black womens identities, expose the contradictions in black women rappers texts, and value black women rappers texts as pedagogical.
A textual analysis centered in a black feminist theoretical framework was used to examine the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality in black women rappers representations of black womens identities. The analysis reveals that black women rappers teach important lessons about the representation of black women around questions of black womens sexuality usually defined in terms of male desire, mainstream beauty standards, the roles of black women in heterosexual relationships, control over black womens bodies, the privileging of heterosexuality, the connection between sexual freedom and black womens ownership of capital, and the necessity of black women writing their own representations rather than being defined by others.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-04132005-074319 |
| Date | 18 April 2005 |
| Creators | Guillory, Nichole Ann |
| Contributors | Becky Ropers-Huilman, Leigh Clemons, William F. Pinar, Nina Asher, Elsie Michie |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04132005-074319/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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