?uestlove of The Roots is the latest celebrity to defend Hip-Hop culture after actress Ashley Judd released a biased attack on it in her forthcoming book.

On Friday reports surfaced that Judd said that Hip-Hop had a “rape culture” and called it the “contemporary soundtrack of misogyny” in her book ‘All That Is Bitter, and Sweet.’

“YouthAIDS created hip public service announcements for TV and radio using popular local and international celebrities and athletes and was participating in the MTV World AIDS Day ‘Staying Alive’ concerts,” she writes.

“Along with other performers, YouthAIDS was supported by rap and hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg and P. Diddy to spread the message…um, who? Those names were a red flag.

“As far as I’m concerned, most rap and hip-hop music — with it’s rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s’ — is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.

“I believe that the social construction of gender — the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interests of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women — is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.”

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A number of Hip-Hop artists were offended including The Roots drummer who took to his Twitter account to defend his beliefs.

According to Questlove, he ran into the actress during a taping of Jimmy Fallon where The Roots serve as the house band, and she didn’t utter a single word to him. “Hmmm. at least i got my answer as to why ash judd didn’t give us so much as a nod on her last visit. im a criminal.” He added, “EVERY genre of music has elements of violence. It speaks MORE volumes that in rap only a certain side gets promoted…Irony of all this? The main movie i remember Judd from is the one that taught me i can’t be convicted for murder 2ce in the US.”

The Philly native also compared her rant to Oprah Winfrey, who has long been vocal about her disdain towards hip-hop music, for its use of bad language and misogynistic lyrics.

However, today Ashley Judd took to the airwaves and defended her claims, here’s what she had to say.

My intention was to support artists to know that they have so much power. They make incredible life changing impressions, particularly on the young. And we have choices everyday with our expressions, either empower and celebrate people or to re-enforce inequality and degradation. We are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. There is no in-between.

There are elements, and that is the part that has been so distorted, what I’m being accused of is condemning rap and hip-hop as a whole, and the whole community and when they say community, they mean the fans, and African-Americans, it’s become so generalized.

Judd goes on explain…

My intention was to take a stand to say the elements of that musical expression that are misogynistic and treat girls and women in a hyper-sexualized way that are inappropriate. That is not acceptable in any artistic expression, in any cultural form, whether its country music or in television story lines. And if they read more than one paragraph in the book, they would see that all four hundred pages are about that.”

Ashley Judd’s memoir, reportedly filled with personal revelations, entitled All That Is Bitter & Sweet, has sparked some rebukes, but it is apparent the actress is hopeful fans will be open-minded about embracing it.

 

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