Something Strange Happened Next Year
By Omegadun the Last Hip-Hop Fan

Something strange happened next year. A trend that was slowly brewing for a few months was now in full swing. It first happened at all the major night clubs in the major cities on the same Saturday night. The DJ put on a club banger, and all the ladies stepped off the floor. The men were confused as they stood there looking around at the sausage factory. The owner noticed the club at a stand still and looked at the DJ. The DJ put on another record and got the same response. He began to think his mother was right; maybe he should have gone to college. The same thing happened in New York when 50 Cent was played, in Atlanta when Young Joc was spun, in Houston when UGK was mixed, in L.A. when Snoop Dog was cued, even in Chicago when Twista was up next. All the women decided they would not tolerate songs that called them hoes, bitches, bust downs, birds, stunts, or tricks.
The movement spread like a R. Kelly’s video tape on the internet. Angie Martinez was interviewing Diddy the following Monday on her radio show. Instead of calls for Diddy, there were calls from women, threatening to stop listening to Hot 97 if they didn’t change their track list. Angie, realizing that people didn’t care about Diddy’s new line of SeanJohn Ipod accessories, began to cry. And Diddy with a concerned, sincere look on his face, asked “Angie what’s wrong baby? You OK?” She slowly responded “Yeah…yeah. I’ve never been better. These are tears of joy. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time.” The same happened all over the country. Production Directors were scrambling to find hip hop songs that didn’t degrade women. For a few week, only artist like Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, even Kanye West were hitting the airwaves. To fill in the saturation, old school songs by Eric B. and Rakim, and EPMD were being spun like it was their debut again.
The stunning thing was that Queen Latifah and Lauren Hill were requested the most! Oprah Winfrey had an episode dedicated to urging Latifah and Lauren to get back into the studio. Unfortunately, most of the show had the women arguing if the albums should be only hip hop or should they be allowed to sing as well (rapping prevailed by the end of the show). On another channel, Terrence called in sick for the past three days and Rocsi tried to host 106 and Park by herself. Unfortunately, when Jim Jones entered the show, he was booed by the most of the audience, who were women. To appease the crowd, Lil’ Kim and Remy Ma appeared the next day. To no avail, they received the same response. Rocsi stood there speechless, and then ran off the stage. TRL encountered the same problems, and focused only on rock and roll artist. On the news that very night, Essence Magazine sponsored a rally where they put a pile of pimp cups in front of Viacom and steam rolled them until they were dust.
Record sales of many artists dropped it like it was hot! The clichés of big booties and half naked video hoes began to appear less often on BET. Slowly, things began to change. Artist changed their messages. Real lyrics and real content were now beginning to prevail. The trend became good music rather than catchy hooks. Latifah dropped a new rap album, and Lauren dropped two; one with rap the other with singing. And me…well, something strange happened in my house next year…I was able to let my young daughter listen to the radio.

“It’s fun to dream.” Huey Freeman, Boodocks