It’s always weird to hear men argue about how women should be treated without consulting women themselves. Take, for instance, the all-male panel that testified before Congress on birth control last February. The latest example is the ongoing feud between Peter Rosenberg and Lil Wayne.
It all began when Peter Rosenberg ridiculed Nicki Minaj’s song “Starships,” claiming that the song was not representative of “real hip-hop,” whatever that means. As you (should) know, Wayne responded by cancelling Nicki’s Summer Jam performance, even though she planned a blowout roster of surprises like Foxy Brown, Nas, and Lauryn Hill. Rosenberg was quickly supported by his co-worker Funkmaster Flex, who also criticized Minaj’s lack of so-called authenticity. A few weeks later, Flex and Nicki then spoke at length over the radio and diffused the tensions between Hot 97 and YMCMB.
This appeared to be the end of the issue, but recent comments from Lil’ Wayne brought things back out into the open. According to Wayne, the decision to cancel Minaj’s performance comes from his belief that Nicki Minaj is a female “first and foremost” and that “females deserve the ultimate respect at all times.” Peter Rosenberg responded a few days ago by highlighting Wayne’s comments on record (see: every Lil Wayne song ever), questioning his authority to speak on the issue. He cleverly concludes that the “F” in Weezy F definitely doesn’t stand for “feminist.” Given Wayne’s history, Rosenberg’s comments seem pretty valid. After all, Wayne wants to fuck every girl in the world. That’s probably not a feminist stance. Actually, let’s be real: it isn’t.
That being said, Rosenberg has his own issues to address. Though he was a Women’s Studies minor (interesting fact), like Weezy, who essentialized Nicki by putting her womanhood before her personhood – “she’s a woman first and foremost” – Rosenberg essentialized women by saying that they are “our mothers, our sisters, our daughters.” Women are our mothers, sisters and daughters, but they are also our friends, our co-workers and just people in general. By saying that we should respect familiar women, women that we personally know, Rosenberg implies that unfamiliar women don’t deserve respect. This implication really undermines his argument.
Rosenberg also claims that Nicki’s self-righteousness is unwarranted because of her lyrical similarity to Wayne when it comes to talking about women (see: “Stupid Hoe”). But that only makes sense if your clock is analog; that old maxim, “even a broken clock is right twice a day,” definitely applies here. In other words, regardless of Nicki’s fairly negative track record, as a woman, she still has the right to speak about womanhood, however wrong she may be. Every Women’s Studies minor knows that.
In the end, this entire fiasco just shows a huge lack of respect from both parties. Hip-hop has always thrived on competition, diversity of opinion and slight disrespect, but not on this level. As experts on disRESPECT., we recommend that this beef is sent back to the kitchen and thrown where it belongs.
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I think you are way off on Rosenberg’s statement. He’s saying the opposite. He’s saying that you should treat all women the way you treat your mother, sister, or daughter because that woman IS someone’s mother, sister, or daughter. It’s just a play on the Golden Rule….treat all women as you would treat the women in your own family. He wasn’t saying we “should” respect the women we know, he was making an observation that in most cases, we already respect the women we know, therefore we should carry that respect to the women we don’t know. Like I said, quite the opposite of what you extrapolated from his statements. I think he brings up a very valid point on Minaj’s misogynistic lyrics too. We all have the right to voice our opinions (and actually Rosenberg didn’t say she didn’t have that right), especially those that relate to your own experiences (i.e. a woman on women’s issues), BUT if you are gonna play that card then you better make sure you are consistent with your past actions. She’s not one bit. Any ploy by Minaj to pretend like she’s some type of feminist fighting the good fight rings hollow now considering what her lyrics are. Basically Rosenberg said, go ahead and try it, but if you do you will just sound like a hypocrite. A preemptive strike if you will…..
Good points. I agree and concede that a misinterpretation was made.
[…] · Leave a Comment This Sunday The New York Times decided it was time to comment on the Peter Rosenberg-Nicki Minaj drama that went down at Hot 97‘s Summerjam about three weeks back. The article mainly […]
[…] 21: I enter the Peter Rosenberg vs Lil’ Wayne debate, then renege in the comments a few days […]