Teen Issues

The Hip Hop Generation

Sisters’ Sanctuary™ can support you & your teenage girl
cope with current teen social issues.

In the book Hip-hop America, Nelson George writes this about the culture of hip-hop and its influence:

"Now we know that rap music, and hip-hop style as a whole, has utterly broken through from its ghetto roots to assert a lasting influence on American clothing, magazine publishing, television, language, sexuality, and social policy as well as its obvious presence in records and movies…advertisers, magazines, MTV, fashion companies, beer and soft drink manufacturers, and multimedia conglomerates like Time-Warner have embraced hip-hop as a way to reach not just black young people, but all young people."

The mass-marketing of hip-hop has, as is usual of any form of mass-marketing, taken a culture—a movement--and denigrated, manipulated and packaged it the point that it now does little more than appeal to and indulge the basest instincts of pre-teens and teenagers.

George continues,

“I said it must be ya’ ass ’cause it ain’t yo face” declares Nelly. “Go ’head girl, don’t you stop, keep goin’ ’til you hit the spot (whoa)” demands 50 Cent. Today’s rap artists glorify life as a self-declared “pimp”—or “jigga man” or “love doctor,” as Jay-Z and 50 Cent, respectively, refer to themselves. A dominant theme of these rappers’ music is that their wealth and celebrity attracts a following of “hoes,” a term Angela Davis, editor of Essence magazine, says refers to “nameless, faceless women who have no power;” women whose minds and individual personalities are eclipsed by their physical attributes; women whom rappers like Sir-Mix-a-lot identify by their “itty bitty waists” and “rump-o-smooth skin.” These lyrics, teeming with sexually explicit messages, encourage the subjugation of women and promote disrespect against them. Nelly’s “Tip Drill” is laden with lyrical images that characterize women as mere instruments for male sexual gratification: “Now baby girl bring it over let me spit my pimp juice,” Nelly raps.

Davis said, in an interview with the Harvard Political Review, “Today’s youth culture is being nurtured on these lyrics and these images alone. Because they have only violent and misogynistic images to choose from, their brains are becoming desensitized.”

This is what Sisters’ Sanctuary is about—empowering young women of color to see themselves as sacred, powerful women with the potential to do miraculous things in the world. We are here to counteract the influences that cheapen girls to mere sex objects. By teaching teenage girls self esteem and self love, educating girls on healthy sexuality & body image and encouraging them to set productive goals for their lives, we are setting out to change the future for the good of each sacred girl and the generations they will influence.