The well-known music artist and rapper, Drake, came out with his latest album, Her Loss, in collaboration with 21 Savage. The album hit number one on the Billboard 100 chart almost immediately. Drake’s loyal fans across TikTok were quick to praise him specifically for his single “Spin Bout U” because he includes lyrics that indicate he is pro-choice when it comes to abortion. The 36-year-old hinted through lyrics that he condemned anti-abortion lawmakers following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States. The rapper’s lyrics said “Damn, just turned on the news and seen that men who never got p***y in school are makin’ laws about what women can do.”
Even though Drake is not the first singer to call out the anti-abortion ruling in his music, he received an unusual amount of praise for it. Other artists such as Pink wrote a protest song called ‘Irrelevant’ and Lizzo even showed the phrase “our body, our choice” after performing one of her songs in public. However, the same amount of recognition and praise was not given to them for doing the bare minimum. Mostly young women on TikTok were putting Drake on a pedestal for being pro-choice, however they failed to acknowledge the already prevalent misogyny present in Hip-Hop culture. Musicians such as Drake use rap to objectify and sexualize women regularly, their music mostly contains sexual lyrics that idealize a certain type of woman, and therefore Rap music ends up reinforcing the male gaze. One of drake’s infamous lyrics says “I blow a half a million on you hoes, I’m a feminist”, which is ironic in itself because feminists do not view women as ‘hoes’.
A lot of listeners also called the musician out on his album for being misogynistic because he drags a female artist, Megan Thee Stallion, in one of the album’s songs. Earlier in 2022, Megan was shot by another famous musician and Drake accuses her of lying about it. However, Megan did not stay silent and was quick to retaliate by tweeting “Stop using my shooting for clout”. The fact that Drake unnecessarily mentioned the female rappers shooting, without having any connection to it, just shows how problematic rappers can be. Invalidating a woman’s accident and her pain even when she is famous seems to be the norm. Therefore, even if fans are praising the song Spin Bout U for being pro-choice, they should acknowledge the rapping industry still has a long way to go in terms of being feminist and respectful towards women.
