Word.

Sorry, I'm confused. Yes, we can all agree that his past attitude is less than stellar, but he's not allowed a shot at redemption now?

"Jay-Z trying to ban the word b*tch after giving birth to a girl is like a mass murderer asking other killers to be nice to his relatives. His music has helped to infect the world with the virus of misogyny, and now he wants to act like the Center for Disease Control. He’s like the homophobic pastor who leads anti-gay lynch mobs and later finds out that his own son is gay."

WTF? Assuming the people involved have realised the error of their ways, all of those examples are good things!

Seriously, if Fred Phelps stood up tomorrow and said "I'm sorry. I was a bigoted idiot and I've realised the hurt I've caused", you wouldn't applaud him?

Where I would fault him is that words ultimately mean little. So you're going to stop calling women bitches on record? Good for you. Are you going to do anything more substantial to make amends?

As someone commented on the blog where I found this:

"If he devoted the continuing royalties from his prior use [of the words] to a women's group, then I think he's made some progress."

@ChaosEngine, someone agrees with you.

What I keep thinking is -- he had a wife before he had a daughter. That didn't bring about this change of heart. When his daughter grows up and starts being a person and stops being an adorable innocent lump, will he stop feeling so protective?

It's all good. It has a conversation going. I'm glad he had a change of heart. I hope it lasts. I hope it reaches others who still don't get it.

Fascinating stuff. rap, hip hop, and any of those sorts of 'music' are just laden with so much shit that I don't like finding my kids watching music videos on a weekend morning because it's filling their heads with such fucked up attitudes towards men and women it's just not funny.

Actually I take it back, it's not just rap and hip hop, it's about 70% of popular music is just filled with such rubbish. Katy Perry with her cream shooting breasts (although I guess that has Snoop Dog, so there's the 'rap' link), women dressed in as revealing as possible outfits, singing about buying all the latest shit, having sex with as many people as possible, it's all just fucked.

And yeah, isn't it fucking noble of him to suddenly turn around and decide that people shouldn't be calling his daughter a bitch and a 'ho' after he's been doing it for years.

If he does start making amends by giving money to groups, doing talks to youth as to why it was wrong of him and is wrong of others, then that can make a difference. Someone who they respect letting them know why it's not ok to call women a bitch or a ho, or treat them as sex objects... then that might make a difference. And that would be good

I remember when it was common to hear socially conscious hip hop on the radio. I guess that makes me an old fogey. Get off my lawn, sexist hiphoppers! Good for Jay Z. It took having a daughter to figure out that women are people too, but a change for the better is still a change for the better. Eminem had a daughter when he wrote weird violent fantasies about killing the babymama.

Thankfully the VAST majority of hip hop here (in my country) hasn't been infected with that stupid misogynist bullshit. Here hip hop and rap is still mainly what it was supposed to be, about social commentary and someone's dreams growing up in a shitty place. I mean... they'll sometimes rap about women and such, but it's usually in a much more respecful way, calling them dames and what not.

Moving this video to bareboards2's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.