How Could They Be So Heartless?

Over the weekend I had a chance, via a couple of mix CDs made by a friend, to reacquaint myself with hip-hop, the genre that converted me into a true, obsessive music fan in the early 90s. Most of the tracks were of that vintage - or at least, they weren't particularly recent - and my head nodded with nostalgic energy. The crisp beats and the haunting keyboard accents of DJ Premier. The shuffling funk and soul samples of the late J-Dilla. The righteous rhymes of Jeru the Damaja and the witty wordplay of De La Soul. Sweet. 

And, of course, the occasional dropping of n-, f- (as in "faggot) bombs and b- (as in bitch) bombs that leaves even the finest of hip-hop delicacies tasting a bit sour. I once found it easier to gloss over these glitches, thinking them simply a part of a unique culture that I didn't understand. But that forgiveness, I realize now, is condescending, and definitely counterproductive when applied to those artists who've pulled themselves from hardscrabble beginnings and are now among the world's most fortunate.

Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to the saga of Chris Brown and Rihanna. Neither of them are hip-hop artists, strictly speaking, but some recent developments relate to what might loosely be defined as hip-hop culture.

If your head's been in the sand, what you need to know is that R&B singer Brown allegedly beat up R&B singer Rihanna, his girlfriend, on the day of the Grammys. He hasn't been formally charged yet, but that ultimately depends on Rihanna deciding to bring charges. And if this article is accurate, she's not likely to, because she's apparently taken - or is considering taking - this scumbag back. 

It's a familiar story when it comes to battered women, and no matter how illogical or exasperating it might seem to an outside observer like me, I'll withhold my judgement of Rihanna here, because I can't pretend to understand the emotional and psychological state of a woman abused. 

Rather, what I find disturbing is the way that hip-hop artists like Diddy and Kanye West seem more concerned about Brown's reputation than Rihanna's battered face. These are men who wield tremendous influence as massive pop stars and who could have taken a stand on behalf of the hip-hop community to say that abuse of women is simply not acceptable. Normally I don't put too much stock in the whole role model thing, but it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to come down on what is clearly the right side of this issue. And yet they both failed, miserably.

Now, is this a particularly hip-hop mentality? I want to say no. But even my favourite tunes from the genre's halcyon days are sprinkled with misogyny, and the "don't snitch" code does to trump all virtues in the rap universe. If hip-hop artists continue to speak out in defence of the perpetrator, rather than the victim, they simply can't mount an effective rebuttal to those kinds of critiques.