Damle: Drake is not a feminist; he’s just less sexist than other rappers

Drake has come a long way in his rap career. From his corny Canadian beats of the mid 2000s to the absolute bangers he releases today, it is safe to say that he has grown not just as a musician and businessman, but as a person, especially when it comes to how he handles the treatment of women in hip-hop and rap.

He’s said he’s “started from the bottom,” but where is he now? Like many other rappers, and quite frankly the music industry in general, he’s continued a long-standing tradition of using crass and objectifying language in regards to women.

While Drake isn’t perfect, he’s still acknowledged why this is problematic. In a 2009 interview with Complex, he said:

“The whole tape extends from one of my closest friends Oliver. One night we were having a discussion about women and the way we were talking about them, it was so brazen and so disrespectful. He texted me right after we got off the phone and he was like, ‘Are we becoming the men that our mothers divorced?’…But sometimes you just get so far gone, you get wrapped up in this sh*t.”

Drake acknowledged, even back in 2009, how he and his contemporaries discussed women was less than flattering. He didn’t necessarily say that he would stop, but he was aware of it, which is more than you can say for a lot of rappers.

As his career escalated, Drizzy started to adopt this sort of savior persona in his music, which can be taken as his way of empowering women to value themselves on their minds and not their bodies. On the flip side, it can also be interpreted as Drake condescending women and telling them that, based on their behavior, he needs to rescue them to prevent them from continuing such behavior.

This can be seen in songs as recent as “Hotline Bling,” where Drake says, “Girl you got me down, you got me stressed out/Cause ever since I left the city, you/Started wearing less and goin’ out more/Glasses of champagne out on the dance floor/Hangin’ with some girls I’ve never seen before.”

Here he is implying that the way a woman in his life now dresses is distressing to him.

It’s lyrics like these that shame women for wearing clothes that some consider provocative. Though it is possible that Drake’s intentions are to encourage women to find hobbies other than clubbing, it really isn’t his place to tell a woman what her appropriate behavior ought to be. Women can be encouraged to empower themselves in ways that don’t shame their behaviors, and quite frankly, considering how much rappers brag about their exploits in the club, it is hypocritical to shame women for engaging in the same behavior.

Other lyrics of his, like “I’ve always liked my women book and street smart,” from the song “Fancy,” beat more to a feminist drum because they praise women for their skills and intellect. If Drake is attempting to make room for a male feminist voice in hip-hop, lyrics like these are the way to do it, though it really doesn’t seem that this is his explicit intention considering his lack of lyrical consistency on that front.

Overall, it seems that Drake, while not a “woman hater,” is not a feminist. Like his contemporary J. Cole, who, in his song “No Role Modelz” acknowledges that he uses terms like “b*tches” to refer to women pretty often, Drake is aware of how he talks about women. But awareness is ineffective if he isn’t going to change his behavior. Even if Drake behaves differently around women in real life than he treats them in songs, rapping about “b*tches” all the time while trying to present himself as a more sensitive rapper does more harm than good. Let’s just hope that being around powerhouse women like Serena Williams will encourage Drake to reconsider his behavior within the scope of the music industry.

Isha Damle is a junior television, radio, film major. She rarely knows the actual lyrics to songs, but is good at faking it until she makes it. Plus, her version is probably better. She can be reached at idamle@syr.edu or on Twitter @ishadamle.