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Music

On the Good and Bad Gender Politics of Future and Kanye's "I Won"

Even if the content is shallow by some standards, "I Won" is a love song through and through and a naked, shameless display of emotion. This is not something most people expect from rap.

Let's get this out of the way first: "I Won" bangs. I'm a huge fan of Future, Kanye, and Metro Boomin, and my thoughts on what it says about how hip-hop values women aren't shots. You gotta be dumb as hell to not understand the difference between "discussing the culture" and "hating.”

That said, "I Won" extends hip-hop's objectification of women ad absurdum. Future and Kanye discuss their wives as literal trophies as the song is largely about how hot their wives are. Kanye actually references Kim Kardashian's previous trysts with other famous men as a way to frame his marriage as a victory over competitors. To be honest, you can pretty much slap any "athlete post-championship" cliche on the situation with very little poetic license.

The common complaints about hip-hop's attitude towards women are that they are seen as anonymous, plentiful, and disposible, and that they are only valued for their bodies. "I Won" is progressive in the first case but totally backwards in the second. The premise is there are women out there worth marrying, but those women are objectively the baddest bitches on the planet. And even if you give "I Won" points for acknowledging that women aren't like buses (thanks Guwop), you still have to grapple with how marriage is portrayed as the man owning the woman. It's basically a return to the 1950's and the extremely rigid gender roles depicted on "Mad Men.”

Hip-hop is in a golden age of coupling up, which is about right given the genre is entering its mid-30's. It’s sewed a lot of wild oats and now it's settling down. The number of rap power couples has increased in the last few years: alongside Future and Ciara and Kanye and Kim, we have Jay Z and Beyoncé, Cam'ron and Juju, Wiz and Amber, Papoose and Remy Ma, Killer Mike and Shay, etc. (Drake and Rihanna don't seem in it for the long-haul right now but I feel their "will they or won't they" vibe). Ten years ago every rapper was a pimp with one R&B song for the ladies on their album. Now rappers of a certain age regularly namecheck their wives on tracks, and do so without hurting their careers. (Rappers of a certain type even namecheck old ex-girlfriends. Whatup Courtney!)

Now, I acknowledge we have to set the bar really low to celebrate rap embracing traditional families. But for a genre continually dismissed with offhand comments about "bitches and hoes" by people who haven't paid attention to the genre since creased Dickies and Locs, we should give credit where credit is due. "I Won" is two dudes rapping about their female counterparts, who are real people whose names we know and know a lot about. That's more than most of us can say about some of our friends' significant others. Even if the content is shallow by some standards, "I Won" is a love song through and through and a naked, shameless display of emotion. This is not something most people expect from rap.

Skinny Friedman's trophies are his two cats. He's on Twitter - @skinny412