Check it While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere

by Gwendolyn D. Pough

Hip-hop culture began in the early 1970s as the creative and activist expressions -- graffiti writing, dee-jaying, break dancing, and rap music -- of black and Latino youth in the depressed South Bronx, and the movement has since grown into a worldwide cultural phenomenon that permeates almost every aspect of society, from speech to dress. But although hip-hop has been assimilated and exploited in the mainstream, young black women who came of age during the hip-hop era are still fighting for equality.In this provocative study, Gwendolyn D. Pough explores the complex relationship between black women, hip-hop, and feminism. Examining a wide range of genres, including rap music, novels, spoken word poetry, hip-hop cinema, and hip-hop soul music, she traces the rhetoric of black women "bringing wreck." Pough demonstrates how influential women rappers such as Queen Latifah, Missy Elliot, and Lil' Kim are building on the legacy of earlier generations of women -- from Sojourner Truth to sisters of the black power and civil rights movements -- to disrupt and break into the dominant patriarchal public sphere. She discusses the ways in which today's young black women struggle against the stereotypical language of the past ("castrating black mother," "mammy," "sapphire") and the present ("bitch," "ho," "chickenhead"), and shows how rap provides an avenue to tell their own life stories, to construct their identities, and to dismantle historical and contemporary negative representations of black womanhood. Pough also looks at the ongoing public dialogue between male and female rappers about love and relationships, explaining how the denigrating rhetoric used by men has been appropriated by black women rappers as a means to empowerment in their own lyrics. The author concludes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications of rap music as well as of third wave and black feminism.This fresh and thought-provoking perspective on the complexities of hip-hop urges young black women to harness the energy, vitality, and activist roots of hip-hop culture and rap music to claim a public voice for themselves and to "bring wreck" on sexism and misogyny in mainstream society.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Feminism, Hip Hop, Gender, Womens

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 2004

Reviews

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wave ya hands in the air and shake`em like you just don't care." These are words often used to hype the crowd for hip-hop concerts around the country. I found myself singing the same tune as I read this remarkable tribute to African American culture, hip-hop and feminism. Pough does an exceptional job of researching the roots of black women in the hip-hop phenomena, which has swept the world and become embedded in its very foundation. The hip-hop culture is broken down and explained through the lens of black women detailing how it has changed and how women are viewed. She traces the rhetoric of women in all hip-hop genres: urban literature, rap & soul music, development of the spoken word, and black film. The essence of the title, Pough explains is how black women bring "wreck" which is a form of praise to describe the "skill and greatness" of the lyrics.

Do you know the great women of hip-hop? You should take the time to sit down with this account of rap legends - Roxanne Shante, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Yo Yo, Salt-N-Pepa and many more. You will learn about Sylvia Robinson, the owner of Sugar Hill Records, break-dancer Baby Love, and poet lyricist Jessica Care Moore and Sista Soulja. Pough uses the work and dedication of these women to help readers understand how women are portrayed in hip-hop. She reaches back to Sojourner Truth preaching black power and equal rights use then leaps forward to Queen Latifah performing socially conscious rap and Salt-N-Pepa exuding sexuality in their breakout lyrics. From the stereotypical roles of "mammy" to the present day images of "chickenhead", black women have used rap music to outline their life, reconfigure their identities, and breakdown the historical stereotypes and negative images that male rappers have constructed.

Pough has provided the world with a well-researched, provocative account of hip-hop culture and the women who have added to its success. Readers can relive the development of hip-hop and sing the songs, remember the films, dances and slang made popular starting from the early 1970's to the present. This is a must-have book for every hip-hop lover, feminist, or African American studies student/department. The issues discussed in this book will provide hours of discussion for anyone who reads it. Pough has brought "wreck" to the area of academia.

[BookChampions · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give Gwen Pough 5 stars as a thinker and feminist. I would love to take a class led by her.

I disagreed with very little and felt I learned a lot from this text, but I wish there was more examination of the female rappers and emcees she seems to champion. Queen Latifah is referred to often, but I was expecting to learn about more hip-hop artists and wreck-ers. I was surprised that over-sexed performers like Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown were given just as much space (or in some cases more) than artists like M.C. Lyte, Salt 'N' Pepa, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu. I wanted Pough to dissect more of the songs and raps and see the kinds of rhetorical moves they were/are making; instead, she spends more time analyzing the raps of men (like Method Man or Biggie Smalls). She also doesn't explore what's happened to women in hip hop culture today--where are all the women today?

The book certainly provides ton of food for thought, and her overarching goals are perfectly noble. My expectations were just a bit too high, I guess. (On a side note: Reading the book got me pulling out my hip-hop CDs that I haven't listened to in awhile, and that has been a lot of fun.)

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my masters thesis on rap music in Nova Scotia, Canada. I appreciated the way Pough wrote this book so that it could be understood by all, and not just those of us who have a background in sociological and feminist discourse. That being said it was an easy read with many examples to support her arguments. For someone who has struggled, in the past with Habermas' social theory of the public sphere, Pough applied this theory and explained it in such simplistic terms that everything made sense to me! I liked how she provided the reader with a history of Black women in expressive culture, providing a better framework for her examination of Black women in hip hop. I did find this book repetitive at times so that's why I didn't give it five stars, but is a a very useful source for academic work and/or just an interesting read!

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book for getting a historical view of women in hip-hop.

[Chi Chi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It starts off a bit slow, laying some ground work with theory, but it really picks up and presents some interesting discussions about the role of feminism in hip hop.