Angie Martínez: a chameleon artist1
2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 15; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14701840903471557
ISSN1470-1847
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American and Latino Studies
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. I would like to thank my colleagues at the University of Southampton: Dr Marie-Pierre Gibert, Dr Loraine Day, Dr Mark Dinneen, Professor Clare Mar-Molinero, Dr Darren Paffey and Claudia Ortiz Gajardo for their invaluable and expert advice. 2. According to Rose (, p. 303), black women rappers want to avoid using the label of feminists since feminism is seen as a movement specifically related to white women adopting an anti-male position. Black female rappers do not want their work to be interpreted as anti-black male. 3. Humann () explores these ideas in relation to hip-hop artists Lil'Kim and Destiny's Child, whose lyrics contain feminist messages whilst promoting capitalism. 4. The butta pecan mami is the term used to refer to a Latina woman who is characterized by a lighter-skinned, latinized variation on black womanhood (Rivera , pp. 11, 127). 5. For further information on the links between African American and Puerto Rican culture and ethno-racial identity, see Raquel Z. Rivera (). 6. Rivera (, pp. 4, 13) remarks that the hip-hop cultural 'core' is often assumed to be African American since it is perceived as being solely rooted in Afro-North-American culture and musical traditions. However, as Rivera also comments (2003, p. 13), hip-hop is a fluid cultural space, influenced by the transnational interaction of African American, Puerto Rican and other Caribbean musical genres and diasporic cultures. 7. The 'mark of the plural' is a term coined by Albert Memmi in his seminal The Colonizer and the Colonized (first published in 1957) and refers to the supremacist colonial belief that a colonized person is representative of an anonymous collectivity rather than being an individual. Memmi's notion is useful in the exploration of the butta pecan mami since woman, like the colonized, is always perceived as the Other, as lack and as absence. 8. Boricua is the alternative term commonly used for Puerto Rican and is derived from the word 'Borikén', the Taíno name for the island of Puerto Rico. 9. Until quite recently, hip-hop culture had traditionally been notoriously and openly homophobic, and had offered very little space for the expression of diverse sexual identities which extend beyond the heterosexual norm. In 'Every Little Girl', Martínez mentions that she has been the subject of homophobic name-calling but clarifies that the story about her being a lesbian is untrue. By setting the record straight in such a public manner, she appears to subscribe to the view that even for people who are not gay, such name-calling is often deemed as highly insulting and degrading, thus reinforcing the negative perception of gays and lesbians which prevails in hip-hop culture. 10. In her seminal essay 'The Laugh of the Medusa' (first published in 1975), urges women to 'Write yourself. Your body must be heard' (1981, p. 245). The critic develops this new discourse of femininity in The Newly Born Woman (first published in 1975): 'Woman must write her body, must make up the unimpeded tongue that bursts partitions, classes, and rhetorics, orders and codes, must inundate, run through, go beyond the discourse with its last reserves' (1986, pp. 94–95). 11. According to Roberts (), full breasts and rounded buttocks and thighs are traditionally perceived as markers of black women by black culture. Negrón-Muntaner () also remarks that female bottoms are central in Afro-diasporic and Western discourses of beauty which focus on sexuality, power and the body. Whereas dark skin and certain hair textures (e.g., nappy hair) are often seen as undesirable features, the 'black ass' is perceived as a positive feature of black femininity since it is revered by white, Puerto Rican and African American men alike. The 'black ass' serves to bolster the stereotyped perception of African American women as the exotic and hyper-sexual Other in white Anglocentric culture. 12. In The Second Sex , the mother of modern feminism, examines how heterosexual relationships are based on unequal sexual, social and economic power relations between men and women. For instance, she suggests that marriage 'c'est toujours présenté de manière radicalement différente pour l'homme et pour la femme. Les deux sexes sont nécessaires l'un à l'autre, mais cette nécessité n'a jamais engendré entre eux de réciprocité: jamais les femmes n'ont constitué une caste établissant avec la caste mâle sur un pied d'égalité des échanges et des contrats' (1949, p. 222). 13. Slang in hip-hop culture is also a very well known and agreed badge of insider membership, regardless of whatever 'community' a person may be aligning himself or herself with. 14. Sub-heading adapted from Humann's book chapter 'Feminist and Material Concerns: Lil'Kim, Destiny's Child, and Questions of Consciousness' (2007). 15. For more information on women's under-representation in the music industry in the US, see Barnet and Burriss (, pp. 103–124).
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