I never could pinpoint when I fell in love with hip-hop; it had simply always been there. But I remember, distinctly, the moment when I realized it had been a dysfunctional and perhaps even abusive relationship. I’d been working on a playlist for a friend’s birthday, compiled exclusively of rap tracks considered classics of the genre, and was giving it a listen while on a run. I’d heard these songs hundreds of times over the years, but that day—as a woman in her 30s making a playlist for a man who’d recently had a baby girl—I was suddenly hearing them anew. The volume seemed turned up for every mention of “hoes” and “bitches,” like someone had taken a sonic highlighter and run it over every verse about devious, promiscuous, and generally disposable women.

Hip-hop had undoubtedly shaped my worldview, my politics, and my sense of self. I’m sure that, by then, I’d skimmed over countless think pieces about misogyny and sexism in the music. But only that day did it dawn on me that I’d spent my formative years with hip-hop whispering into my headphones that I, as a woman, was worthless—that women were interchangeable accessories, extras in songs and videos, not to be trusted, certainly not to be believed.

I didn’t stop listening to hip-hop. I mean, come on. But I did find myself turning songs off on my walks, avoiding certain artists, gravitating far more toward R&B, old soul, and classic salsa. There is much in hip-hop music and culture that I loved and still love. But after that day, it’s never been the same.

[Gee, who could have predicted that? Anyone who paid attention to rap lyrics from the very beginning. Feminists raised these issues at the time, as did liberal activists like Tipper Gore, but got marginalized as racist and/or puritanical for criticizing the emerging “authentic” black culture of the late 70s and early 80s. Those attempts to use a consistent standard of cultural and artistic criticism got buried under a kind of pre-woke double standard that still exists today, and may be stronger than ever. — Ed]