Whose revolution is televised? : young African Nova Scotian women respond to sexual politics in hip hop culture & everyday life

Abstract

This qualitative research study explores young African Nova Scotian women's responses to images of Black female bodies depicted in three popular hip hop music videos. Taking a Black socio-feminist theoretical perspective, the project elicits the views of five young women in their first or second year of university, using an open-ended and semi-structured individual interview format. Research findings indicate that the participants are media literate and that they critically consume depictions of the Black female body in popular culture. Factors such as academic achievement, the importance of divinity, and degree of communal affiliation act as bases for counter-hegemonic viewing of the images. Whereas popular cultural depicts the Black female body as sexually promiscuous, the young women interviewed define Black female beauty as a quality mostly emanating from the inside-out.