In response to the artwork for Nicki Minaj’s upcoming single, Anaconda, Chuck Creekmur, the CEO of AllHipHop.com wrote an open letter to the rapper essentially scolding her for the sexual nature of the cover.
Creekmur, who bills himself as a concerned father of a young daughter, penned a brilliantly condescending letter dripping in slut-shaming, patriarchy, respectability politics, double standards and some flawed logic for good measure.
Mind you, this man is the CEO of a site that routinely features the songs, videos and album artwork of males rappers that are cloaked in the hyper-sexuality and exploitation of women, but apparently Nicki Minaj is the only one who needs to be taken to task.
You remember the one of you licking a lollipop and evoking the now-classic image of Lil Kim in all of her crotchiness? Of course you remember your version of that image, because you asked us to take it down through a member of the team. The team member let us know that Nicki is no longer on that and is doing a lot to promote a new image – “blah blah blah.”
It makes perfect sense to bring up that photo because Nicki Minaj has obviously never changed her image or grown as an artist over the course of her career. During her entire tenure in the spotlight, Nicki Minaj has fully embraced a single look and stuck with it. So it is understandable why Creekmur would be so taken aback by this shift in aesthetics. It’s such a new concept for her.
For a moment there, I felt like I had briefly peered into the deepest recesses of Nicki Minaj’s true inner self, a being that cares how this ratchet s**t affects my kid. I said to myself, “Self, how cool is this? Nicki is already evolving into somebody that my daughter may get to listen to on my watch. Maybe.”
The fact that this man believes that the deepest recesses of the inner self of an international pop star is concerned with his child is farcically presumptuous. He later suggests that other girls will try to emulate her Anaconda pose. “This the path you want to lead impressionable kids down?” he asks.
We need to immediately stop perpetuating the myth that pop stars and athletes and actors are able to completely determine the course of a child’s life. The biggest influence in your kid’s life is you and your parenting. Perhaps the answer to Creekmur’s obnoxious question is that impressionable children shouldn’t have access to her music in first place, something Nicki herself has said and that is largely the duty of his or her parents. Nicki Minaj is under no obligation to stray from her artistic vision for herself because you don’t know how to monitor your child’s internet access or have a conversation about healthy sexuality.
Like many trite arguments used to stifle the freedom of women in hip hop, Creekmur asks why things can’t be more like the golden age of hip hop. “Even the so-called gangster rappers had something to offer,” he says, citing rapper Ice T as an example.
Ice T was a pimp. Literally. Now he stars in a primetime network drama. If we can assume that even gangster rappers have something to offer and the ability to evolve, then why can’t we afford Nicki Minaj that same benefit? The answer is because many men—and really, society as a whole—are only comfortable with a woman being one thing. She can be pretty OR smart. She can be a good mother OR successful in the workplace. The assumption being that this sexual image of Nicki is the only side to her when, in fact, it’s the only side that patriarchy allows itself to see.
Creekmur then makes a completely inappropriate and inaccurate comparison between wildly different black women for fun, I assume.
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