THE topic of discussion on atlanta pop and hip-hop radio right now. anyhows in case you don't know (credit ajc):
Spelman women dis sex-laden rap videos
Protestors hit at raunchy degradation
By GRACIE BONDS STAPLES, VIKKI CONWELL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/20/04
The bone marrow drive was just weeks away. Asha Jennings was excited at the prospect of Spelman College teaming with 4Sho4Kids — a foundation started by rapper Nelly — to bring attention to an important cause.
For months, the 21-year-old had been organizing the marrow drive. She and her friends were talking about it in Decatur early on the morning of March 15.
The conversation eventually turned to music videos — one in particular.
"What's 'Tip Drill?' " Jennings asked.
"A bunch of strippers shaking their butts,'' she was told.
"Who's the artist?''
"Your boy, Nelly,'' came the answer.
It was Jennings' first step into an issue that has sparked several protests at her school — one is scheduled today — and has renewed discussion of the denigration of black women in music videos.
The women leading the fight are barely 20. Many had not been born when hip-hop emerged, but came of age listening to its music.
Later that morning in March, Jennings saw Nelly's "Tip Drill" for the first time. "I couldn't believe it,'' she recalled. "I just think of little girls watching it."
The music video features dozens of women in thong bikinis and dancing around a swimming pool, in hot tubs and a pool hall. One of the scenes includes a credit card swipe through a woman's buttocks.
Before that moment, Jennings had thought of Nelly more as the celebrity who had launched efforts to increase the number of African-American bone marrow donors — in part because his sister suffers from leukemia.
"Nelly wants us to help his sister," Jennings said, "but he's degrading hundreds of us."
Her friends tried to convince her to take the video for what it was — a way to make money. But just thinking about it made her cry.
"It was a moral issue for me,'' Jennings said. "My integrity was on the line.''
'Uncut' classic
The "Tip Drill" video, shot at various Atlanta locations, was released more than six months ago and has become a classic on BET's "Uncut," which airs at 3 a.m.
Harold Hardee, co-producer of "Tip Drill," said he was "a little" shocked when he saw the final product. "I don't have a cut-and-dry answer to how I feel," said Hardee, 28, but people need to realize the video "is not really reality."
The four-minute video took 12 hours and $80,000 to shoot. The women in the video were paid from $200 to $2,500, he said.
"They share in the blame as much as the artist," said Ryan Cameron, morning show host for Hot 107.9 FM and a hip-hop DJ since the early 90s. "If they say we want to swipe a credit card on your rear end, and all the young ladies say we're not going to do that, then they would cut that scene. If they say 'yes' . . . then they are both to blame."
The phrase "tip drill" is "a ghetto colloquialism for the proverbial ugly girl with a nice body," said Mark Anthony Neal, associate professor of American studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
In the context of the Nelly video, Neal said, such women are only good for one thing — sex — and crude sex at that.
A feminist's mission
Unknown to Jennings, "Tip Drill" had already driven another Spelman student to action. Moya Bailey, president of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, said she stumbled across the music video during Christmas break. She was home in Fayetteville, Ark., talking with a friend on the telephone.
"Oh my God,'' Bailey said, noticing the women's buttocks swirling about. "Wow.''
The next morning over breakfast, she talked to her father about it. Carlton Bailey, a law professor at the University of Arkansas, had indeed seen the video.
"That's the problem with young people today,'' Bailey recalled her father's reaction.
Bailey returned to Spelman determined to deal with "Tip Drill." By February, the 20-year-old junior had gotten together a public forum: Are these women exploiting themselves? Is it Nelly's fault? Can women be sexual and have it not be negative?
There was no consensus among the 40 or so students from Spelman and Morehouse colleges that night — but it was a good discussion, Bailey said.
The student chapter of the NAACP led its own discussion days later. And two weeks afterward, there was a panel at Spelman attended by nearly 150 students.
On the morning of March 17, Bailey ran into Jennings, who had seen the music video for the first time two days earlier. "Moya, come look at this,'' Jennings said. "I've got a dilemma.''
Jennings showed Bailey fliers that advertised the upcoming bone marrow drive promoted by Nelly. Because of the "Tip Drill" video, Jennings told her fellow student she wasn't sure she should move forward.
"We were in agreement that he shouldn't be invited," Bailey said. "That we should draft a letter saying you're not welcome, but the foundation is.''
From that moment, Jennings, a political science major, and Bailey, a pre-med student, became a team.
There was one sticking point: Jennings had developed a good relationship with Nelly's 4Sho4Kids Foundation over the past months and was less willing to shun the star for pragmatic reasons.
Still, she couldn't excuse the artist's role in perpetuating misogynistic images.
With only days remaining before the charity drive, she called her parents, Rick and Cassandra Jennings, in Sacramento, Calif.
"Asha, it can't be that bad," her mother told her. "The cause is greater.''
Then, with her parents still on the other end of the phone, they watched the music video together.
Cassandra Jennings had two words for her daughter: "Cancel it.''
The day arrives
Before Jennings could follow through on her mother's advice, the foundation — which had been alerted that students planned to confront Nelly at the April 2 event — withdrew.
Chalena Mack, executive director of 4Sho4Kids, would not discuss Jennings' role in the unraveling of the bone marrow drive.
Nelly's publicist, Juliette Harris, declined to comment.
Jennings and Bailey decided to go forward with their protest, staging a rally to discuss hip-hop and what had been loosely labeled the "Nelly controversy."
Jennings wore a white sign bearing "Posted Private Property" in big block red letters. Every half-hour they showed "Tip Drill" on a video screen in the student center so people could see what was at issue. "This isn't all black people," Bailey said, "but these images go around the world, and this is how people view us who don't interact with us.''
News of the rally was played on local and national media. Jennings and Bailey have been interviewed by People magazine and contacted by "60 Minutes" and Essence, a popular African-American women's magazine.
Through it all, they have stuck to their core message: Stop buying and listening to music that exploits women.
The two students hope their stand has made a difference.
"Everyone calls it the 'Nelly controversy,' but this is bigger than Nelly,"Jennings said. "It's about empowering our sisters who think this is the only way to make it.
"We have to stop arguing that's the way it is and ask ourselves . . . how do we change it?"
― cinniblount (James Blount), Friday, 23 April 2004 06:37 (twenty-two years ago)
two years pass...