What's Lupe's issue with the Bad Bitch?

Criticizing Hip Hop

Unlike most critiques of the word's use in hip hop lyrics, that attack the use of the word simply because of it misogynistic nature, Lupe wants us to take a look at the duality of the term amongst men and women in the black community, whom although using the same words are speaking a completely different language.

The young girls are singing along to the rap songs showing them that a “bad bitch” is a woman who is strong and empowered, possessing a sense of control over men because of her attractiveness. This is seen as a positive term for them. 

The young boy sees the image of his mother proclaiming herself as a “bad bitch”- so for him it is also a positive term but the definition is different he saw his mother as a positive figure who didn't look, dress, or act like the video vixen mold of a bitch. When this is how the young woman presents herself while also proclaiming to be a bad bitch, he has little respect for her because this isn't the same light that he saw his mother in. She’s essentially “bad at a being a bitch”. 

One view of the word is affirming; the other view of the word is determinant in nature. 

In turn the word is working against itself.  Burke stated in Terministic Screens that “Even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by it’s very nature…it must be a selection of reality…must function also as a deflection of reality.” (p.45) This tri-fold explanation of screens mirrors how we use bitch. It is a reflection of our reality because he have selected this definition by pointing out these characteristics from the norms of female behavior/appearance. 

Who is Lupe blaming?

Is he blaming media?

I don't think Lupe's reconstruction of this screen was created for the purpose of placing blame but in order to illuminate an issue and show juxtapose this issue against a similar black issue with historical context.  Although, if we were to assign blame from Lupe's perspective I would say he places a heavy amount of the blame on the music industry itself. Although, the utilization of minstrelsy was impart to show the entertainment and capitalistic gains of a group whom aren't being represented as  the butt of the joke. Much in the way current hip hop music isn't primarily being produced for or making money for the black community. 

Is he blaming the black community?

Lupe is showing the duality of the term "bad bitch" through out the video and giving us the example of while, a woman may use this term as a device for self-affirmation men are using it to frame her sexual usability. A woman may be measuring her “badness” as an index of her superiority over other women, for attractiveness, sexual prowess, success ect., while it measured by men, again,  only to extent in which she can be used sexually. I think Lupe is calling for us to change the way that project ourselves and our culture to the world. Although, the 

Hip Hop music by directing our attention at particular attributes that constitute a “bad bitch” has determined how we see women who represent this hip hop image of a bitch by separation