"Women's Business" Hip Hop, Rap Beef and Cannon Fodder
What do Rappers, TV, and Comic Book Writers have in common?
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Welcome to another week of rap talk, if you’re not a fan of rap-beef, this is your opportunity to exit stage left, if you also don’t like comic books, you should bolt for the door RIGHT NOW. Ok good, now that it’s just us nerds and masochists, we can get to it. Have you ever heard of the word “Fridging?” The term comes from a Green Lantern comic (Green Lantern #50, by Ron Marz, Darryl Banks, and Romeo Tanghal) that is now famous for its relevance in pop culture and writing. In the specific issue, the new Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner) comes home and finds that his girlfriend (Alexandra DeWitt) has been murdered and stuffed inside of a fridge by one of his villain nemesis.
Alex uproots her entire life and moves to New York City with Kyle, helps him design his costume, and then supports him as he struggles to figure out what kind of hero he wants to be. Just as the relationship looks like it’s going to take the next step, the murder happens, even though she played a strong part in his growth, after her tragic death, she is mostly forgotten, her only role is to be a lesson about the lifestyle that Kyle has decided to embrace.
A few years after this issue came out, comic book writer, Gail Simone created a website that showed other examples of women being killed off, assaulted, violated, or harmed to move plots forward. That website helped inspire the term Fridging. Since then, you can see examples of fridging throughout modern pop culture. A more recent example happens in season two of the hit show, “The Bear.”
In the second season, the main character Carmy gets a love interest (Claire). However, unlike the other characters on the show, Claire receives no real development. We do not know who she is outside of her interest in Carmy, and how he makes her feel. Her backstory is tied directly to him, and how she has shown up in his life. As a result, she’s prominent throughout the season, but mostly as a vehicle to justify Carmy's existence outside of the kitchen and finding a healthier and happier balance.
Things devolve by the season’s end when Carmy chooses his career over happiness, leading to their break up. Don’t get me wrong, the Bear is an amazing show, and if you haven’t watched it, you need to start. But as good as this show is, their use of Claire as what feels like cannon fodder to move the plot forward feels like fridging, and cheats us from getting a much richer story if more time was made to flesh her out.
Fridging is one of those clear but subtle ways we can reduce the role that people, usually women play in our lives, to make a point. Instead of doing the work to see the full person, we use them as a vehicle for what we care about. For Black and non-Black people of color, we are treated as the Magical Negro, Sassy Latina, or the “Sage Asian” who guides the troubled white protagonist through a challenge or comes to terms with their racism. Female characters usually get treated as the death, assault, or break-up that will push our hero to the next level. It’s an easy tool, so many people take advantage of it. And while there will be moments where you need to use a character to move a plot along, it should not be the standard because generally, It makes for lazy writing and flat characters.
So why am I talking about Fridging in an essay that’s supposed to be reacting to the latest responses from Drake and others? Simple, because we’re starting to see a form of Fridging in Hip Hop.
After J Cole shocked the world by apologizing to Kendrick Lamar and bowing out of one of the most anticipated rap battles in the last 20 years, we have seen a lot of activity. On April 12th, Metro Boom and Future dropped their second project in less than a month titled, “We Still don’t Trust You.”
Like the first project, this featured a laundry list of artists throwing shots at Drake. Whether it was The Weeknd crooning about “leaks in the system” or the world’s second most famous House Husband, ASAP Rocky alluding that he may have slept with the mother of Drakes's child, it was clear that the assault on Drizzy would continue. Unfortunately for Future and Metro, the album didn’t have much time to percolate, because less than 24 hours (faster than a Cole apology) after their album was released, Drake finally responded with his song.
In a track titled, “Push-Ups” Drake told Metro to “Shut the Fu*** up and make some drums” bragged about being responsible for rapper future’s first #1 record, fat-shamed Rick Ross, and then alluded to having some incriminating information about the mother of rapper/producer Travis Scotts child. If that wasn’t bad enough, he then called out Kendrick Lamar’s wife’s name on the track in a bar which many people are saying could be him accusing her of cheating on her husband with his bodyguard. In less than 24 hours, three different women had been thrown into rap conflict between men for no other reason but to get some lines off.
This isn’t strictly a Drake or New-age rapper problem either, some of hip hop’s biggest rivalries and diss tracks have centered around women. Jay-Z’s Iconic verse on “Is that Your Chic” was about him having an affair with the mother of Nas’s child. He then went so far with “Super Ugly” that he was forced to apologize later. 2Pac famously released “Hit em Up” a diss track aimed at rapper Biggie Smalls in which Pac bragged about having sex with Biggies then wife, Faith Evans.” Ja Rule called Eminems Ex-wife, Kim Mathers a “known slut” and then asked out loud, “what you think Halie (his daughter) gonna be when she grows up?” There seem to be very few rap battles that can occur without mentioning someone’s significant other. Meanwhile, one of the most loyal fanbases in Hip Hop is women.
I was impressed that Drake responded, especially when besides Kendrick, he’s going against approximately 2029238329 different rappers. But the more music I hear, the more I understand why Cole decided to step out of this fight. Fans were excited to see this level of competition between rappers because it usually brings the best out of them lyrically. We’re looking for creative ways that artist can put words together while going at their opponent, and while there has been some pretty decent rapping going on. This is turning into a mudslinging contest where people are having their racial identity questioned, and the hardest-hitting bars seem to be about women.
Respectfully, that’s corny. If the only way you can prove you are better than another artist is to go after the women in their lives, are you as good as you think you are? In television and comic book writing, Fridging generally happens when writers are being lazy, or don’t know where to go next. It’s one-star writing, the same should go for Hip Hop.
This and homophobia/ questioning one’s sexuality in relation to hegemonic masculinity are both low hanging fruit. An absolute bore 🥱
Brava love this so much and appreciated the use of examples across time and medium.