Parental Discretion Advised

Snoop Doggy Dogg - Doggystyle 

This was my very first hip hop album. I think I was in grade 8 when I got it for my birthday from my friend Karley. I listened to it from beginning to end and knew all the lyrics by heart. I remember I sold it to a friend and later regretted it and bought it back, only to find that her mother had taken out the album artwork due to its explicit content. I have since lost that CD. I just got it again as a perk of working at a radio station.

Now when I listen to it I am baffled by how quick I was to sing along to the blatantly mysogynistic lyrics such as "bitches ain't shit" and "it ain't no fun if the homies can't have none" (meaning if a girl doesn't give it up to a guy AND all his friends she is no fun). I think back then it was the infectious beats that made me love it. I still listen to it. But now I laugh at my young self for being so naive. And it saddens me a bit because I realize how impressionable my friends and I were and how oblivious we were to the messages we were subjecting our young minds to on repeat in our CD players.

Now young girls can go with 50 Cent to his 'candy shop' and lick the 'lollipop'. The artwork in his latest album 'The Massacre' sickens me. My favourite photo is of 50 Cent and the female member of his rap group, Olivia, stirring a giant cauldron of what looks like chocolate milk. The cauldron also contains two topless women. I wonder what I would have thought of it back in grade 8. I probably would have put it up in my locker or something ridiculous like that. Other photos include underwear clad women holding guns and flanking 50 as he stares down his nose at his followers, and a lovely home scene of 50 counting cash and weighing drugs while one of his women is ironing in lingerie in the background. I would love to ask Olivia how she feels about this 'artwork'.