Hip-hop and rap have often been criticized for depicting stereotypical depictions of women, particularly Black women, even while striving to offer a cultural counter-narrative of powerful black masculinity that is positive. Kanye West’s song “Gold Digger” famously criticizes women for being only interested in a man’s money, and the video crassly shows women in skimpy clothing gyrating in front of West, even being used as credit card dispensers. Although rap’s narrative may question a white world where the police are trustworthy and criminality is viewed as evil, versus a natural response to the environment, it often embraces a very negative view of women at its worst and at its best has depicted women more as sexualized objects than as fully dimensional human beings. On the other hand, as noted by Patricia Hill Collins in her essay “Get Your Freak On: Sex, Babies, and Images of Black Femininity,” many female artists such as Missy Elliot have appropriated the idea of the highly sexualized Black women of rap videos with pride.  But this is changing. Today, even male artists such as Drake in songs like “Nice for What” are offering alternative views of women while still using the discourse of hip-hop. Songs like “Nice for What” address in images and words, show women demonstrating class, respect, and genuinely working hard for what they earn, versus solely showing women as money-hungry and the objects of male desire. Drake shows the ability of women seek an education, mother a child, run a company, and even dress in an elegant rather than sexually provocative manner as attractive rather than antithetical to Black male empowerment. The legacy of artists like Missy Elliot show that hip-hop as a method of cultural subversion for Black women as well as Black men can be the new reality. Old scripts can be reconfigured and rewritten.

Getting Your Freak On: Elliot’s Challenge

    One of the most notable concepts in hip-hop, dating back to the 1970s is that of freakiness. In Elliot’s songs and videos, this idea is addressed directly, and Elliot seeks to appropriate the idea of working it and freakiness a method of empowerment for women rather than oppression, as it has traditionally been constructed. Of course, the hip-hop narrative of progress is never linear, and many artists continue to use misogyny and freakiness to question Black female autonomy in their works. But the works of Elliot and more modern artists such as Drake highlight that hip-hop’s method of expression can be feminist and empowering in both the work of women and men. 

    When Elliot created her seminal “Work It,” and “Get Your Freak On,” Collins argues that Elliot was drawing upon a tradition that had associated African-American women and men with so-called freakiness or unnaturalness versus the ordinary neutrality of whiteness. Even when African-American artists had embraced the freakiness term, it was usually to suggest the extremity of Black female sexuality in particular. Rick James’ “Super Freak” is perhaps the best example...

Freakiness implies a sexual appetite out of the ordinary. This panders to many of the pre-existing stereotypes of Black femininity, even though its catchy beat and innocent-sounding dance rhythms can easily make a listener forget its real meaning.
     Collins notes that the slang word freak is very pliable in its meaning, however, and it can refer to being strange, sexual, or even simply to dance. Sometimes it can mean all three, and while some artists like James accepted the dominant cultural discourse’s view of what Black female freakiness might mean, others such as Elliot have blurred the lines. “To be labeled a freak, to be freak, and to freak,” can be different things, suggests Collins, and much like other slurs like bitch and faggot, the term is often used to simultaneously replicate oppression to resist it (Collins 121). Elliot’s “Get Your Freak On” shows women and men getting their groove on and enjoying dancing rather than sexually pandering to specific images of Black sexuality. Rewriting what freakiness means as something positive can also be seen as rewriting the dominant cultural script of what it means to be Black as well—as Blackness was often viewed as deviant and freaky in the sense of strange, Elliot suggests that freakiness as a mode of individuality is positive and empowering for both men and women, as she delightfully urges listeners to get their freak on, no matter what that might be.

    Collins further notes that the image of Black hyper-masculinity as oppressing women (in other words, taking advantage of women’s freakiness) has often been used to denigrate African-American culture in general and Black men in general. The act of Black women reclaiming their right to be sexual in a positive way—to be freaky—thus likewise becomes a rehabilitation of African-American culture as a whole, since simply because people are “getting their freak on” does not necessarily mean that they are showing disrespect for one another. Far from it, they can be celebrating one another, as Elliot shows in her video.

    Elliot’s video for her song “Get Your Freak On” begins with martial artists dancing to rap music in a nonsexual fashion. It then features the singer dressed in black and denim, not objectifying herself but celebrating herself as a positive and beautiful image of black womanhood. Elliot, during the video, is seen in different frames clothed in white and gold (an image of wealth and power) and in camouflage in other segments (an image of strength). Although the term freak often suggests rampant sexuality, Elliot offers alternative personas for the female viewer (and perhaps even the male viewer) that are fierce and sexy but not objectified. 

    Elliot also shows people dancing and having fun in the video, including women who are not obviously dancing for men or to incite male desire. Another striking aspect of Elliot’s video is…