Anybody who knows me, knows that I absolutely love rap, hip-hop and R&B genre styles. I love the beats, the tracks, the rhythm and most importantly the lyrics. Now here is where I can get into a confusing situation. I am also a wildly proclaimed feminist. Feminist who likes rap music you say? Yes, it is true. I, a woman who enjoys liberation and equality between the different likes of people, also enjoy what many would call the “devil’s music.”

Recently I started working at a clothing store that only really plays one type of playlist, catchy Top 40 pop songs, throughout the store. Listening to a lot of these songs, I’ve started to truly listen and interpret what the lyrics actually mean, which has led me to feel somewhat uncomfortable and almost disgusted by hearing the overtly sexualized the love interests are made out to be. I started to think to myself “wow, this is actually allowed to be played on the radio, but rap music is frowned upon?”

I then was kind of surprised with myself because I had just realized that my uncomfortableness with pop music was probably the reaction that a lot of people, who like pop music, are with rap music.

Now I’m not harping or bashing on anybody that likes to listen to pop music, but I wanted to see the comparison between the reactions of the general public with rap or pop musics. I would say that the overall reason why most people don’t like to listen to rap music, is because the lyrics can be outright vulgar. With the changing times, I wouldn’t say that rap music goers are in the minority, as the masses start growing it seems every day, but with the older population, it just seems like they absolutely hate it.

But the real question is, how can I, a feminist, be a fan of such music that is widely unliked because it so vulgar and misogynistic? Which, truthfully has been a question that I only recently answered for myself. With feminism, we are obviously looking for not only our peers to treat one another equally and justly, but we are also looking at society to look at us in those ways. How could a music that raps about strippers and money help that notion?

The truth is, there is no “woke” music, or at least there’s very little of it. In every single genre of music you listen to, there is going to be at least a handful, if not more, of people singing lyrics with either misogynistic words, offensive words, ableist words. The truth is, it’s extremely hard to find a single genre of music that will cater to your very own thought process. What is over the line for some, is okay for others. While one rapper might be using the N-word in his song, the pop artist is singing about borderline stalking a young woman.

There are some artists out there who are educated in social justice issues and use their music as a form of expression of thought--including Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., but there are also that make rap because it turns into a game of spitting bars, without a take-home message.

So really, I think that if we’re going to pick and choose what music we can listen to because it’s appropriate, then we might as well rarely listen to music, if ever. It’s extremely hard for me to find entirely “woke” music that pleases every aspect of every person. I think that if we could find that type of music, then we wouldn’t even need to write out articles like this.