I cannot get enough of Atmosphere’s new record Seven’s Travels. MC Slug loves the ladies with the low self esteem. Like Beyonce – I am crazy in love, like this kind of thug/playa/rappa love that I have been immersed in for the last few decades. I wrote him a fan letter, but since our tour dates do not coincide, I don’t think that I will get to see Atmosphere live at all this year.
At any time, it is likely that I have a mad crush on an MC. Hip hop rules my head and my heart and there will always be some boy spitting rhymes that is gonna make me want to wear some black lipliner and have babies with original and non-gender specific names. Not that I would ever go after it. I am far too old for that kind of backstage shit. Plus, I fucked enough entertainers to know that playas only love you when they playin’. I don’t want one, I just love the beat, and it makes me happy when I see them having love in their private lives. The most awesome thing lately was Eminem and Kim getting back together, because really, it is the best situation for Hailie, and it just seems like they are truly meant for each other. Besides, any man that gets that mad at a woman, to write the most venomous lyrics about her, mini-requiems about her death, elaborate poetry about killing her, in varied and progressively more horrific ways, must really be in love. Not that I am equating domestic violence with love. That is certainly a terrible crime and the most painful kind of betrayal, as it happens in the home, with the person who is closest to you, with whom you are supposed to create a sanctuary with against the varied and vast dangers of the world that might close in on you any second, who has the responsibility for your safety, who is your shelter, holding onto your heart with care and reverence. I have been on the receiving end of domestic violence, backed up against the wall, my finger on the telephone dialing 9-1. “go ahead motherfucker.what’s up NOW!!!!”
Probably because I grew up with it, I know it well, and the relationship recreates itself every now and again in my life. But because it is familiar, and I got first hand backhands when I was a kid, I fight back so hard that it isn’t just that man I am beating the shit out of, but all the men that ever hurt me. You come at me like a dark cloud, I will strike back with a hurricane. Ex boyfriends leave a stain. No – your boys ain’t gonna come pick you up after I am through. It is gonna be FORENSICS picking pieces of you out of the carpet and putting you in plastic bags. Not only will you no longer be in my residence, you will be used as evidence. This is when I can go overboard, and become the abuser by wielding my victimhood like a baseball bat, crushing your spirit blow after blow. The first fist to my grill was a cold introduction to womanhood, and its presumed weaknesses in the way the patriarchy systematically ruled my family. Male might was right in my house, and I was forced to accept it, and I vowed to myself not to feel the pain. And I didn’t. Not at all. I hovered above myself, watching like a nearly dead person thrown from the car, back pressed up to the sky, observing the paramedics administering CPR wondering if I will allow them to be successful enough to draw me back into my broken body. If they got the skills, I’ll not get killed. But my innocence failed to survive, as well as my faith in men, and love. Up above from the balcony of my mortality, I saw my small body racked back and forth with a force that would have broken a crash test dummy, my head bashed again and again into a mirror until it broke and blood ran red, hot, and terrifyingly fast and splattered on shards of glass. From my vantage point, I couldn’t feel anything, but the purity of rage. The sins of the father, will never be forgiven by this daughter, and every man that will put his hands on me in a way that is not completely loving will pay for the misdeeds of the last offender, as the one before him paid, and so on. After there is a cease fire, I don’t always leave, because if there are good solid loving reasons to stay, I can feel safe, know that I am ok, can get to that place of safety that no one can guarantee, but that I know inside is true and reliable, and my man can earn my trust if he works hard enough for it. I know, if they ever tried it once, they never attempt it again. I don’t take just an eye for an eye, I will rob you of your eyesight because I saw you do some shit that I didn’t like. I am the Bitchmaker. Revengetaker. Heartbreaker – don’t you mess around with me, no no. My rage is my guardian angel, and will reside by my side as an avenger, my own personal catsuited Diana Rigg, stronger than all men on earth, made mightier by every blow that a woman receives from a man.
I love hip hop because it gives voice to my anger, and even though their wrath might be directed at someone just like me, and often the lyrics are sexist and mcs are defiantly unaffected by feminists saying that they are condoning the violence against women in order to prove their own perilous manhood for the benefit of the boys listening, if I am playing it, I am saying it. I hook into the pure emotion, and not necessarily their own personal struggle, and I feel safer still, knowing that I am not the only angry one. In that communion, I feel strength and relief, wildly grateful for the beat that would calm the savage beast within, who is a pissed off baby girl – grown now but still mad, holding onto that grudge like a teddy bear missing an eye. People in my life are insanely protective of me, because they only see that baby girl and they don’t see the glint of hard vengeance in my eyes, don’t recognize me as the equalizer, punisher of the crimes of the men who came before, and seldom come around after, as they usually no longer have the ability to walk. I live by the sword and I will die by the sword, and there are eyes on the back of my head which never blink, and it makes me glad, because if you take me down, you are coming with me.