Popular Culture Review 30.1
commercially viable by Hollywood record executives . Contemporary male artists in the United States are presented to consumers via presentations that endorse concepts of the male gaze . Furthermore , the Grammy Awards mirrors this type of gender invisibility in American hip-hop as it eliminated the Best Female in Rap category in 2005 . Whereas women were once extremely popular and were an integral part of hip-hop in the United States though the late 1990s , women are now once again hypersexualized and stereotyped in the industry . Moreover , in terms of American rap music , females in general continue to be the victims of misogynistic lyrical and visual presentations put forth by male rappers in their lyrics , songs , and videos . This sort of sexism even occurs among best-selling female hip-hop artists in the contemporary era . In 2015 , Nicki Minaj ’ s choice to self-promote her “ brand ” via the use of misogynist body imagery on her recent album differs starkly from the feminist and Afrocentric powerful presentation once employed by female rappers such as Queen Latifah . In France , this type of negative imagery is far less common . That said , blatant sexism is not invisible when best-selling contemporary French hip-hop artists ( such as Booba ) freely label women as “ putains ” ( whores ) in many songs and the use of misogyny to sell records is on the rise . Furthermore , despite good visibility in terms of album sales and airplay , women in French hip-hop remain marginalized by an industry that favors males . Although men continue to dominate rap music in France in terms of per capita release percentages , female rappers have shown that they can sell records and they are extremely popular when they are fully promoted by record companies . In other words , feminist messages resonate when they are heard and given full industry support and commercial airplay , and women rappers are able to be noticed because of the unique subject matter of their rap counteracts and confronts sexism in France . This
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