By stacy lee kong

Hip-hop is 50 now. Literally, today. On August 11, 1973, a then-18-year-old DJ Kool Herc played his little sister Cindy’s back-to-school party in the rec room of their Bronx apartment building, a moment in time that historians point to as the beginning of a genre that would eventually give us rappers including Tupac, Biggie, Lil Kim, MC Lyte, Common, Q-Tip, Lauryn Hill, DMX, Queen Latifah, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Drake, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B—and both Megan Thee Stallion (amazing, talented, a bright light) and Tory Lanez (ugh).

I specifically bring those last two up because this week, I’ve been seeing tons of tributes, listicles, playlists, cultural analysis and video essays about what this milestone anniversary means for a genre of music I’ve loved most of my life, as well as a lot of discourse about Tory’s recent sentencing in the July 2020 shooting that left Meg with bullet wounds in both feet, and I think it would be useful to consider these things in relation to one another.

A quick recap or, remember all the people who joked about Megan being shot?

On July 12, 2020, the Los Angeles Police Department responded to early-morning reports of gunshots outside Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home, where Tory and Megan had been attending a party, and arrested him for carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle, according to Insider’s timeline of this situation. Initially, reports said Meg had been injured by broken glass, but as we’d soon learn, he’d actually shot her in both feet. Details trickled out over the course of the next month or so; first, Meg publicly confirmed she’d been shot on July 15, but didn’t name who shot her. Then, on July 27, she told fans that the bullets hadn’t broken bones or tendons, but that surgery “was super scary; it was, like, just the worst experience of my life.”

By this point, Page Six had already reported that Tory was the shooter, while jokes, memes and rumours had already started circulating that implied Megan was lying about being shot, or that if she had been shot, that she deserved it. (As I wrote at the time, a lot of these conversations were rooted in misgynoir and transphobia. More on this in a moment.) It got to the point where she felt she had to address it, first going Live on Instagram to update her fans on her condition, as well as to say that the situation “[wasn’t] funny. There's nothing to joke about. It was nothing for y'all to start going and making up fake stories about... I didn't deserve to get shot." Then, on August 19, she posted a close-up photo of her gunshot to Instagram with the caption, “I got hit at the back of my feet because when I got shot I was WALKING AWAY FACING THE BACK… why would I lie abt getting shot? Why are y'all so upset that I don't wanna be in the bed sad? Why y'all upset that I can walk?” It’s only then that she brought up Tory’s name, going Live again on Instagram on August 20 to say, “Tory shot me.”

I think it’s important to note that Meg did not press charges, because a lot of the social media commentary has been about her trying to ‘tear Tory down,’ whether that’s because of jealousy, revenge or pure bad-mindedness. But in fact, victims of crimes don’t have any power over whether someone is prosecuted or not; they can only decide if they will cooperate with the legal system. All of which is to say, he has consistently been the architect of his own downfall, which is why on October 8, 2020, then-Los Angeles district attorney released a statement saying that prosecutors had charged Tory (government name: Daystar Peterson) with “one felony count each of assault with semiautomatic firearm – personal use of a firearm—and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. The defendant also faces a gun allegation and that he personally inflicted great bodily injury.”

Not that this stopped the discourse. Worse, these ‘jokes’ weren’t just coming from random losers with Twitter fingers and delusions of relevance; they were coming from Meg’s peers. In an appearance on the Weed and Wine podcast, former reality TV star Draya Michele said, “I predict that they had some sort of Bobby and Whitney love that, you know, drove them down this snapped-esque type of road. And I’m here for it. I like that. I want you to like me so much that you shoot me in the foot too.” Chrissy Teigen tweeted that she “[had] a megan thee stallion joke but it needs to be twerked on.” Rapper 50 Cent shared multiple memes that made light of the shooting (though he has since apologized). Rapper Cam’ron reposted a transphobic tweet on his Instagram account. DJ Akademiks became Tory’s self-styled PR machine, helping spread anti-Megan sentiment, as well as false claims that ‘DNA evidence’ would vindicate his buddy. And no, we will never forget about Drake rapping, “This bitch lie ’bout getting shots, but she still a stallion” on “Circo Loco,” a song off Her Loss, his 2022 album with 21 Savage. This is not even to mention Tory’s behaviour after the shooting, which can only be described as cruel. Think, trying to say the shooter was actually Meg’s former best friend, Kelsey Harris, trying to ambush Megan on stage at Rolling Loud Miami in 2021 (aided by DaBaby, who did a whole bunch of other shit at that show) and taunting her via Twitter last spring, a move that landed him back in jail for violating a restraining order.

Even his conviction in December 2022 and sentencing earlier this week hasn’t stopped people from taking Tory’s side, which has been awful to watch, especially since she’s been open about the toll this situation has taken on her mental health. As she wrote in an essay for Elle earlier this year, “many thought I was inexplicably healed because I was still smiling through the pain, still posting on social media, still performing, still dancing, and still releasing music. The truth is that I started falling into a depression. I didn’t feel like making music. I was in such a low place that I didn’t even know what I wanted to rap about. I wondered if people even cared anymore. There would be times that I’d literally be backstage or in my hotel, crying my eyes out, and then I’d have to pull Megan Pete together and be Megan Thee Stallion. It never crossed my mind that people wouldn’t believe me… [My] heart hurts for all the women around the world who are suffering in silence, especially if you’re a Black woman who doesn’t appear as if she needs help. So many times, people looked at me and thought, ‘You look strong. You’re outspoken. You’re tall. You don’t look like somebody who needs to be saved.’ They assumed that, per preconceived stigmas, ‘I didn’t fit the profile of a victim,’ and that I didn’t need support or protection.”

Misogyny in hip-hop is nothing new

I understand why Megan was shocked that people didn’t believe her and that her peers piled on, but… I’m kind of not. As she, and many other Black women, have pointed out, we live in a racist, misogynist society that doesn’t see Black women as deserving of care, protection or softness. That’s compounded by her particular Black experience—because of her build, physical stature, assertiveness and skin colour, none of which adhere to Eurocentric beauty ideals, people question her gender in a way that’s rooted in misogynoir and transphobia. But, we also have to talk specifically about why hip-hop has historically been a toxic space for women, and how that plays into the way this industry is treating Megan now.

This feels… complicated to talk about in some ways. Hip-hop has been maligned since the very beginning, and one way (mostly white, but very politically diverse) critics have tried to diminish its impact or value has been to point at misogynistic lyrics, of which there are many to reference to be fair. As a result, I have personally spent a lot of time pointing out that other genres of music are also deeply misogynist (hello, country music) and not quite downplaying, but definitely contextualizing the most problematic language and themes. And those things remain true! But there is also a deep, deep vein of misogyny running through this genre that manifests in very specific-to-hip-hop ways, and that also has to be part of this conversation.

For starters, women have been at the forefront of hip-hop’s development from the very beginning (let’s not forget whose party Kool Herc was DJing), but as filmmaker, producer and pioneering hip-hop journalist dream hampton recently explained in a Q&A about Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop, the new Netflix series she co-executive produced with MC Lyte, not only have the men of this industry often denied them the credit they deserve, these women have also been “abused, exploited, erased.” As she goes on to say, “I think [for] Hip-Hop 50, if it’s not asking questions about the three major founders, [the] three kind of Mount Rushmore icons, are we talking to Afrika Bambaataa [alleged] victims? Are we talking to Russell Simmons’ [alleged] victims? Are we talking to Dr. Dre’s victims? That’s a great opportunity to do that.”

She’s right—this is also part of hip-hop’s legacy: in 2021, an anonymous man sued Bambaataa, the pioneering DJ, producer and rapper from the South Bronx who first articulated the four elements of hip-hop culture (rapping, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti) and helped spread it well beyond its New York City origins, for child sexual abuse, alleging that Bambaataa “‘repeatedly sexually abused’ him and took him to locations where he says he was abused by other adult men” for four years in the 1990s. Russell Simmons, the OG hip-hop mogul who co-founded Def Jam Records and signed acts like The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J, has been accused of sexual assault by at least 18 women, including Drew Dixon, who worked as director of A&R at Def Jam from 1994 to 1995, where she says Simmons repeatedly harassed her, and eventually violently sexually assaulted her. And Dr. Dre, the rapper and producer who was part of iconic rap group N.W.A. as well as the co-founder and president of Death Row Records, has an especially long history of assault and abuse. He allegedly violently assaulted hip-hop journalist and MC Dee Barnes at a record release party in 1991, throwing her down a flight of stairs, kicking her and slamming her head against a wall. Two other exes, Lisa Johnson and singer-songwriter Michel’le, have spoken out about the physical abuse they say they experienced at his hands, as has rapper Tairrie B, one of his contemporaries.

Dre directly addressed these allegations for the first time in 2015, releasing a statement to the New York Times saying in part, “I apologize to the women I’ve hurt. I deeply regret what I did and know that it has forever impacted all of our lives.” He spoke about them again in a 2017 HBO docuseries, this time saying, “any man that puts his hands on a female is a fucking idiot. He’s out of his fucking mind, and I was out of my fucking mind at the time. I fucked up, I paid for it, I’m sorry for it, I apologize for it… I have this dark cloud that follows me and it’s going to be attached to me forever. It’s a major blemish on who I am as a man.” (Presumably, these statements did not apply to his ex-wife Nicole Young, who in 2021 alleged he abused her throughout their 24-year marriage.)

And it’s not just these three men; Tupac is my favourite rapper of all time. He was also convicted of sexual abuse in 1995, though this is a part of his legacy that’s often glossed over.  Notorious B.I.G. brutally abused Lil Kim. Chris Brown beat up—and bit—Rihanna (and has consistently been violent with women since then) yet still has supporters. Rappers like XXXtentacion, 6ix9ine, NBA YoungBoy and Kodak Black built huge fanbases despite increasingly dire reports of their abusive behaviour toward women. When video of an altercation between Quavo and Saweetie emerged in 2021, the internet had far more jokes than sympathy for her. You already know what I think about Drake. I mean… even men who haven’t allegedly abused anyone—and women who should really know better—reference abusive behaviour in their music.

While we’re celebrating the genre we love, we also have to think about women’s place in it

To be clear, there is not more misogyny in hip-hop than in any other genre of music, nor are these rich, famous, powerful men somehow different or worse than the ones in other sectors. But it would be ridiculous to pretend that systemic misogyny is not at play here. It’s right there in the way the industry and its fans perceive women’s talent, skills and contributions as less important than men’s, and in their refusal to take women’s safety seriously, and in their discomfort over grappling with these icons’ full legacies.  

Take Dee Barnes, for example. In February, she spoke out after the Recording Academy honoured Dr. Dre with a Global Impact Award at this year’s Grammys—and poignantly drew attention to the ways his accolades have so often coincided with her erasure.

"He said it himself in the documentary The Defiant Ones: I’m a ‘blemish’ on who he is as a man. Well, what do you do with a blemish? There’s a whole industry created—skincare lines and vitamins and rituals—to get rid of blemishes,” she told Rolling Stone. “And, in a sense, there’s a whole network to keep me hidden… I shouldn’t have to suffer by not being able to exist in a space and in a culture that not only did I grow up in but that I contributed to in a major way. Is this about his feelings? Is this about his legacy? Or is it about ego and toxic masculinity? What is it about? My whole history has been erased—as an artist, as a music journalist, and as a television host.”

I’m can’t be the only one who sees the parallels between Barnes’ exclusion from the industry and culture, which seems to be at least in part about avoiding awkwardness by prioritizing the comfort of a powerful man, and the overarching implication that it would be better if Meg had kept quiet about being shot, instead swallowing her pain—and thus protecting Tory from punishment/public censure/the consequences of his actions.

This is especially troubling when you consider the rise of a certain conservatism among rappers. As cultural critic, writer and Friday Things fave Tayo Bero wrote in The Guardian this week, Ice Cube has recently become a conservative media darling, “joining a long list of rappers—Kanye West, Da Baby, Kodak Black, Lil Pump—who have all put themselves in dangerous proximity to conservative politicians even as rightwing populism threatens to destroy their communities… In discussions about money, gender identity, public health and a variety of social issues, rappers and rightwingers have a lot more in common than you’d immediately think. Many people from both groups share hypermasculinity, conservative Christian values, and a distrust of social institutions (justified or not); and on this common ground sits a messy and dangerous alliance full of people who ordinarily would hate each other, but have come together to make vulnerable people their enemy. 

Maybe this is a mercenary pivot that’s purely about capitalism; maybe it’s the natural outcome of hip-hop’s enduring cultural conservatism combined with white supremacist, patriarchal systems and algorithms that radicalize men of all races. I’m not sure it actually matters why men in this space are embracing right-wing radicalism, only that they are, and when combined with existing misogyny in this space, that can only be a total disaster for women in the hip-hop and fans who love it.

So yeah. Hip-hop is 50 now, and while we’re joyfully celebrating where it came from and how it has thrived over the past five decades, I think it’s fair to reserve some space to think about these less honourable parts of hip-hop history, how they have shaped what this industry and culture looks like right now and what we want the next 50 years (and beyond) to look like. Because a milestone anniversary like this one is exactly the right time to think about the whole story of hip-hop, including how slow it has been to confront its own misogyny—and to be honest with ourselves when we ask, are we good with that?

And Did You Hear About…

This Twitter thread that is 75% wrong and 25% the most correct thing I’ve ever read in my life.

Writer Jennifer Senior’s compelling feature about America’s history of institutionalizing people with intellectual disabilities, and how that played out in her own family.

Phil Lewis’ great newsletter on the Montgomery, Alabama melee, and the continuing importance of Black Twitter.

New York mag’s profile of Bessel van der Kolk, trauma researcher and author of The Body Keeps Score, which tracks the 80-year-old’s career, as well as how our society has not just embraced trauma as a concept but also widened its scope… for better or for worse.

Three BookTok things: First, Unbothered’s thoughtful breakdown of the Seattle Kraken/Kierra Lewis debacle. Second, the 35-year-old California man who’s teaching himself how to read on TikTok. Third, this very funny interview.

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