Rap and misogyny seem to go hand and hand in today’s culture. Every top club banger, every fresh mixtape, every new sound seems to repeat the same hyper-masculine, anti-feminist message, degrading women to little more than accesories with their only value being their sexuality and their use as status items for the men they roll with. Rich Gang’s “Tapout” is no exception to this trend. From it’s opening line of “If you hating, you just need some pussy”, we see what Michael Eric Dyson described as “society [...] teaching young men and women to believe that the only way to be an authentic man is to dominate a woman.” Lil Wayne’s lyric is meant to snub his haters by insinuating that their inferior status is due to a lack of sex. However, the wording of the line puts female sexuality as something that men have a right to take and own, not as shared by both parties. Further in his segment, Weezy says “Yeah, she say she love me, she just love this dick,” yet again pushing women solely as sexual beings. The emotional contact is completely removed from both sides, leaving Weezy as dominant in the eyes of society because he has a woman clinging onto him sexually.
But one does not need to closely analyze specific lyrics to understand the message of the song: that women are simply status symbols for men due to their sexuality. After all, the chorus of the song is “She got that million dollar, million dollar oooo ooo ooo./ And all I wanna do is touch it, touch it, touch it, ooo ooo oo/ Make her tap out, tap out, tap out, tap out, tap out/ And I'm a make her tap out, tap out, tap out, tap out, tap out (all day, all night).” The “million dollar ooo” is, as referenced other times in the song, female genitalia. By calling it “million dollar”, we see it’s use as a status item (later compared against Maybachs, Bugattis, Fendi, and Versace). The reference to tapping out is to say that the sex will be so long she’ll have to ask to stop. This clearly shows Dyson’s theory on being an “authentic man”, since the entire premise of the song is that the female will be dominated so much that she’ll have to ask the man to stop. The fact that these famous rappers are putting this song out in the “rap game” show that this is meant to boost their image, that this dominance over women equals a dominance in society.
However, what makes “Tapout” a bit different from other, similar rap music is that it is not just composed of men supporting the ideas of misogyny. Nicki Minaj is also featured on this track, with lines similar in content to her male counterparts. Referencing her own sexuality, she says “Million dollar pussy, million dollar pussy/ Six inch pumps, play with his balls, dunks/ Bald head, yup, don't want no Forest Gumps.” Although she is referencing and highlighting her own “positive” assets, she is far from the “fly-girl” who highlighted beauty that a culture chose to ignore. And despite her reclamation of male-made terms such as pussy or referencing strippers, she is definitely considered “sista with attitude.” Instead, Minaj falls into the trope of accepting the role left to her by men, as Dyson stated. She doesn’t create an identity, but rather accepts the one given to her. This brand of feminism is not feminism at all, but seems to be all we see in the rap game. -SKH
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