I'm So Hood, That's So Hood

DJ Khaled’s “I’m So Hood” and Gorilla Zoe’s “Hood Nigga” enumerate the criteria for maintaining hood status. Lives of crime are advanced as essential by the artists, and gold teeth along with sagging pants are indicators of the lifestyle. These songs, among many others like them, emphasize the hood as an identity, rather than a place. Such emphasis supports the unfair criminalization of black bodies in the mainstream media and interrupts the fulfillment of my personal dream of being able to wear gold teeth without being judged.