Again, if people saw men visually represented as a pimp figure this wouldn’t be a conversation. The idea of the visual representation of the “ho” without being seen with her “owner” also has people in their chest. It’s also the fact that even white audiences see it this way. https://twitter.com/rustyrockets/status/1294359385741950976

The “ho figure” should not be speaking without the “guidance” of her pimp. Russell Brand might as well be acting as Daniel Patrick Moyhihan as he attempts to explain to white audiences the problem of the “ho figure” in Hip Hop as a replication of patriarchy.

Moynihan talked about the problems of the “Negro family” and how Black women, in some sense, assumed the man’s role (perhaps a patriarchal role). In some ways I’m simplifying by it. I see this white man’s explanation of Black intracommunal “problems” no differently than a 1965

report.

However, the “ho figure” in this case is the Black woman, and he struggles to name this deliberately. In the post-Obama/ BLM matter age, within the aftermath of the George Floyd uprisings, he must succumb to “colorblindness.” So instead he focuses on “women”

replicating the “patriarchy.” We’ve been here before. But again, “the ho” speaks and performs without the “pimp,” because the “pimp figure” is dead or dying.

And it’s important to name that we are talking about Black men as pimp figures as well. However, I am also willing to entertain how often Hip Hop is revered as a culture for all, so maybe even the idea is white men’s participation as “owning figures” as well.

This conversation has barely moved past feminism or anti-feminism in the context of a Black-white relation.

Sources:

Miller-Young, Mireille. A taste for brown sugar: Black women in pornography. Duke University Press, 2014.

Stallings, L. H. "Hip hop and the Black ratchet imagination." Palimpsest 2, no. 2 (2013): 135-139.

Cite me as Zalika U. Ibaorimi