by Tiya Cunningham-Sumter
I am a Mary J. Blige fan, I love her music. Sometimes it just speaks to me. There are times when I’ve been at a certain place and her music has met me right there. I often find myself listening, enjoying and singing along. Mary’s most recent song (with Trey Songz) that I find myself singing along to is “We Got Hood Love”. I hadn’t previously paid much attention to the lyrics until recently. I noticed I was singing,
“We got hood love, I be cussin’, I be screamin like it’s over”.
It finally hit me. When people use the term hood love, is this what they mean? The phrase is becoming more and more popular, it was just an Essence hot topic and I know people who have had relationships like this. The thought of hood love brought another song to mind, Lauryn Hill’s X-Factor. I often sang along to this one with the following words,
“Loving you is like a battle and we both end up with scars. As painful as this thing has been, I just can’t be with no one else…
No one’s hurt me more than you and no one ever will”.
Is this considered hood love as well? It seems like the same kind of love. When the Lauryn Hill song was in rotation, as I sang along, I would think how deep this type of love must be. If a couple had endured all of this, there must be something serious in there somewhere. Back in my younger days, it seemed that real love had to have some sort of drama and I thought that was what I wanted. But my relationship and later marriage displayed none of that. I wondered what was wrong with us, why didn’t we love that hard? I knew people who couldn’t get along unless they weren’t getting along. A couple of those relationships worked out and some ended as painfully as they started. As I am older now, and very happy, I have come to the conclusion that if this is what hood love is, I will have to take a pass. We don’t have to love like that. It just isn’t healthy for me or us. I personally can’t exist in any relationship where there is cussin’, fussin’, screamin, a battle or scars. I can’t feel like leaving sometimes. A real relationship should be simple. There will be disagreements, yes, but knock-down, drag-out screaming matches, NO! We should trade in the cussin’ for conversation, get rid of the screamin’ for some seduction, and lose the battle and scars to add bliss and sanctity.
BMWK, Have you experienced a “Hood Love” relationship? What are your thoughts on “Hood Love”
By Tiya Cunningham-Sumter, a Certified Life & Relationship Coach, Founder of Life Editing, creator of The Black Wives’ Club and an Administrator of Still Dating My Spouse. Tiya resides in Chicago with her husband and two children.