Album Cover- Witherspoon

Media Type: Album Cover Art

Concept Source: Witherspoon

Hip hop music is a multifaceted cultural movement of blackness (Witherspoon). As we studied from the Witherspoon reading, the female African American rapper Missy Elliot subverted the context of hip hop away from the history of glorifying street life as well as degrading women and queer bodies (Witherspoon). She showcases a sense of gender fluidity and toys with sex norms. The music video we studied in class, “The Rain,” exemplified these characteristics through her "trash bag" outfit and her gender-play on words with the unclear pronunciation of "he" or "she" as the object of desire.

Considering it came out in 1997, I would have thought that the genre may continue down her successful path, but what I find is that hip hop and rap artists, including female ones, showcase some of the most derogatory language and dress I have seen on any platform. Once specific area where this can be visually showcased is album art cover. Here there are multiple album covers from current African American rap artists. Each showcase their own bodies in a sexualized, airbrushed way. They are all covered in jewels, as if their body was a top prize. The jewels cover the minimum required to not be considered pornographic, or their bodies are twisted in such away where their able to cover their naked bodies with their own limbs. Both Missy Elliot's "trash bag" outfit and the outfits on the album covers serve as a message to the public about women's bodies. Elliot herself is a sexual assault survivor. Her "trash bag" outfit can be interpreted as, her body was treated like trash, but despite that event she will still take up space and she will re-inhabit the body she has (Witherspoon). On the other hand, the album covers suggest that their bodies are for the viewing, or for the pleasure of someone else.

Alaş, M. and Piggott, M. (2018). Nicki Minaj: Queen. [Album Cover] Young Money.

Carter, K. (2018). Cardi B: Money. [Album Cover] Atlantic Records.

Klinko, M. (2003). Beyonce: Dangerously in Love. [Album Cover] Columbia.

Witherspoon, Nia O. "'Beep Beep, Who Got the Keys to the Jeep?”: Missy’s Trick as (Un)Making

   Queer." The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 50, no. 4, 2017, pp. 871-93.