This article focuses on thug performances as sites for investigating love, sex, and gender in hip hop. First, we see evidence of thugs' need for love in their quest for women's love, whether manifest as fulfilling sexual encounters, or partnership with a down ass chick. Second, celebrations of thug life take on an increasingly elastic and inclusive character, such that thuggin' becomes an activity or lifestyle admired by fans and onlookers at multiple gender locations. Desire for love and approval is often communicated through the deployment of well-trodden archetypes of masculinity and femininity, such that constructions of sexual and romantic
personae reaffirm oppressive gender paradigms.