By Hollis Wormsby
If you have been following the hip-hop movement at all you are aware that a person of minimal talent named Cardi B is the flavor of the moment for the mainstream media. Cardi B, who all but takes pride in her stripper past, this past week revealed in what would be considered broken English at best, that she had also been a member of the Bloods gang, but that it was alright because they were not really violent, they were more like a fraternity/sorority.
Cardi B also reveals in the interview that she did not reveal her past relationship with the Bloods before she got her contract, because she be all about them dollars, and did not want anything she had done to upset her chance for a big payday.
So Cardi B dropped out of high school, became a stripper, joined the Bloods gang and reps them in some of her songs, and we should just embrace her as the next big thing and let our daughters look up to her.
I don’t want my daughter looking up to an ex-stripper. I don’t want her to think that it’s ok to make horrendous choices as long as they pay well in the end. Why is it that these are the kind of women they put out for young sisters to emulate, but do not hold women of the same character to such high esteem in front of their own daughters?
Is it good that Cardi B is a former stripper and gang member who will be able to exploit these traits for temporary wealth and fame? The reality is that most of our daughters who become strippers and gang queens, will never recover from those choices and will lead lives filled with hurt and humiliation because of them.
And it isn’t just Cardi B, we have Blac Chyna, we have all the Real Housewives of whatever and we have countless hip hop artists putting out messages that are toxic to our youth and for some reason, we sit on the sidelines and say nothing.
Years ago, I talked with members of a young rap group out of Chicago, who were putting out music about b–ches and ho’s and asked them why they couldn’t take the same beats and rap positive images over them. Their response to me was that rap had changed from its earliest beginnings where young rappers were making mixed tapes and selling them directly to the public out of the back of their cars. During that era the music was being written directly to the people. But when music executives got involved they decided there was a sound they wanted, and that was the only sound being paid for, so it was like “make that sound,” or in my opinion that garbage, or you cannot have commercial success in hip hop.
In all communities there is a market that is aimed at the youth of that community, but in most communities, we do not surrender our children to influences that we know are negative and are having a negative impact on our children.
We need to figure out who is paying for all the negativity that is being pushed on our children and then find ways to financially impact them if they don’t change their ways. Cardi B and Blac Chyna should not be role models for our daughters.
Or at least that’s the way I see it.
Hollis Wormsby has served as a featured columnist for the Birmingham Times for more than 28 years. He is the former host of Talkback on 98.7 KISS FM and of Real Talk on WAGG AM. If you would like to comment on this column you can go to Facebook.com/holliswormsby or email him at hjwormsby@aol.com.
