Despite being out of the public eye since the release of their 2005 album U.S.A."" the Ying Yang Twins still managed to generate attention and excitement around their performance yesterday, with at least 574 confirmed guests on the Facebook invite when tickets are (inexplicably) $20 to $25 a pop. Memorial Union Great Hall's capacity is 585.
When rapper Nelly sought to coordinate a bone marrow drive at Spelman College titled ""4 sho, 4 kids"" in 2004, the student community basically stonewalled him, rallying against the contentious video for his song ""Tip Drill."" The video is described by a friend of mine as ""pathological"", but the kicker comes at the end when the rapper swipes a credit card through the rear end of one of the female dancers. With the lyrics ""it ain't no fun unless we all get some,"" Tip Drill encourages a female to have multiple sexual partners in rapid succession - an obvious analogy to the basketball drill in which players take turns hitting the ball off the backboard one after another.
In response, feminist activists on campus purportedly demanded that Nelly attend an open forum and answer questions regarding the video as a condition of Spelman sponsoring the bone marrow drive. Upon his refusal, his campus visit was cancelled altogether.
Fast-forward to 2008, where one of the most high-profile crunk-rap acts can still sell out a venue at - amazingly - $20 or more per ticket on one of the most self-professed liberal, ""progressive"" college campuses in the country, without putting out any widely publicized albums in nearly 3 years.
There was not a single protest. There is not a murmur from the Campus Women's Center or Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment - they probably all have tickets. The event is sponsored by the Wisconsin Union Directorate, which used to consider itself a champion of diversity and social progressivism. Overall, hardly anyone has batted an eye. Instead, the students say it's time to ""GIT CRUNK"" - we can't all wait to grind up on each other in the same room some people get married in, yelling ""SKEET"" drunkenly but still perfectly on cue.
And here we have the classic example of how the Madison student liberal, or whatever percentage of them make up those 574 confirmed concertgoers, are, simply put, full of crap.
The normalization of misogyny through hip-hop is nothing less than mind-blowing. Various scholars and theorists have argued that women are willing participants, that hip-hop for women is empowering, that it provides a necessary outlet for female sexuality and so on. But there are a thousand counter-instances I could reference. ""Soulja Bo Ryan"" is one of them that hits closer to home. I highly doubt Bo is aware of the true definition of the act of either ""supermanning a ho"" or ""cranking the Robocop.""
Ex-hip hop video dancer Karrine Steffans made hundreds of enemies in the rap industry in 2005 with the release of her explosive memoirs titled Confessions of a Video Vixen. Like many whistleblowers, Steffans is regarded by many as a whore cashing in on her experiences. Many contend she didn't even write the book herself, and the rappers she named in her exploits have both threatened and publicly denied her accounts.
Forget whether she lied or not. People who don't believe the glass ceiling in the rap industry isn't covered in skeet need to yank their heads out of the sand. There's an easy and obvious case to make against the Ying Yang Twins. The harder case we'll all inevitably fail to make is the case against ourselves.
I should say at this point I'm keenly aware a lot of concertgoers were likely there because the event was just that much of a joke. But the real joke is the big pat on the back we all gave ourselves after we heavily protested David Horowitz, then lined up to shell out $20 for an even bigger social threat to this campus.
It isn't cool to protest misogyny in hip-hop. To an extent, we all really love it. You can make the obvious counter argument that we can't single out the Ying Yang Twins, because then we'd have to protest all of it - all the crunk rap proliferating across our playlists every weekend that many of us can't get enough of.
I'm just saying. This was a chance for UW-Madison students to talk the talk and walk the walk, and we blew it.
Mitra Jalali is a senior majoring in political science. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
