Hypermasculinity In Hip Hop Music

Funk music touched on a myriad of subject matter, but there are some notable recurring themes that also intertwine themselves in the structure of the hip hop music that came afterwards.

James Brown was undoubtedly one of the biggest figures of funk music and his music’s subject matter was just as broad and diverse as funk music itself. Yet, one recurring theme was that of hypermasculinity and misogyny. As E. Taylor Atkins points out:

[Brown’s response to the Women’s Liberation Movement was arguably] an effort to re-establish a male-dominated order in which women were primarily and fundamentally objects for male titillation and sexual conquest” (Atkins 338).

Some of the songs that Atkins mentions include “It’s a New Day” and “Hot Pants (She

This simultaneously puts down woman through sexual objectification while he puts men on a pedestal as the gender that must be catered to. A lyric that particularly stands out is when Brown says, “Do what he wants, give what he wants, respect will come to you and then you can hold your man, you can hold your man” (Brown). This line can be interpreted as Brown saying that respect can only be earned through a woman’s ability to appease her man. Unfortunately hypermasculine themes have also made their way into hip hop music, only now they are even more explicit and this theme shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. The film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes highlights some of the contemporary issues in hip hop music and two of those issues include the glorification of hypermasculinity and misogynistic views through hip hop lyrics, performances and videos. Author, teacher and radio host Michael Dyson says, “When you think about American society,

Perhaps this trend of commercially successful music promoting hypermasculinity and misogyny found success in funk music and the labels continue to push for these themes in an attempt to continue benefitting from the themes’ popularity and profitability. Both funk and hip hop share the characteristic of being genres that have recurring themes that have been commercially successful, and although it may be out of the control of the artist, these themes play a huge role in both