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Where are the women in hip-hop?As you may know, sample just aired the annual Hip-Hop Honors Awards Special, and BET is set to air their own award show on Oct. 23. You may also have heard that neither has nominated a single female rapper for anything. The absence of women from these award shows is disappointing, but hardly shocking; female emcees no longer have a high profile. Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown and Remy Ma are better known for their tabloid troubles than their music these days. Long-awaited records by Eve and Shawnna have yet to materialize, and while hip-hop groups in the '90s from Flipmode Squad to The Firm often included a token woman, crews these days are almost always no-girls-allowed boys’ clubs.
Many of the great emcees of yesteryear have gone MIA and not many new artists of any prominence have come to take their place. Still, while obvious go-to awards show favorite Missy Elliott wasn't up to much this year, she did have that single from Step Up 2: The Streets, and both Trina and Li'l Mama had relatively well-received new albums. As I've written about before, Jean Grae finally released Jeanius, and it was one of the best records of the year, period. You'd think BET could have scraped together something. And VH1's show honors artists who've made historic contributions to the genre, so they were definitely allowed to dig into the past.
This problem is way bigger than hip-hop; because we live in a racist and sexist culture, there are limited spaces for black women in pop culture across the board. It's unsurprising that the music industry is not clamoring for female rappers — hip-hop as a genre prizes aggression and a quick wit. Put these qualities together in a black woman and it's way too threatening to a white supremacist patriarchy. Black women have and will continue to push through anyway, but it's not for lack of obstacles. And then there's how the broader music industry is a hostile environment for all women, and the Bush years have closed all kinds of doors that once seemed to be opening. Back in the '90s, the joke was that you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a female bassist — every rock band had to have one! While we all had a long way to go in dismantling sexism in the music industry, it was becoming increasingly commonplace to see women playing instruments in mainstream bands. That all changed. The most high-profile new mainstream female rock player of the recent years might be Meg White, the "muse" and quiet sidekick to "genius" Jack White of the White Stripes. She is better known as the subject of "can-she-play-or-not?" debates than for her skills.
I've been pondering the "why" of this broader backlash against women in music, but that's gonna have to wait for another post. Hip-hop is in a particular position in terms of larger trends; as it has become one of the most popular genres of music in the world, it has become serious business to record execs. Not coincidentally, the profile of what a rapper is has become increasingly narrow. At this point, it almost never seems to include the possibility of being female, with the occasional exceptions made for sex bombs. Extremely occasionally, an anomalous innovator like Missy gets attention, after putting in serious time writing and producing for huge artists like SWV and Aaliyah, and guesting on countless tracks.
Still, I have hope that the tide is turning. While hip-hop is still extremely male dominated, small cracks are starting to form in the rigid structure of acceptable masculinity. The Massacre-era 50 Cent typifies what — until recently — seemed to be the corporate ideal for a rapper: someone who once dealt drugs, had been shot, was really buff and had a limited range of emotions, was hyper-masculine and extremely defensive about it, and definitely was not a girl. This is what artists coming up had to emulate if they wanted the best chance of making it. As 50 rose in popularity, he whittled away at his own persona until it became a humorless, two-dimensional caricature of the clever and charismatic personality first noticed on mix tapes. In 2005, The Massacre was the album to beat in terms of sales (if not artistry), and nobody was up to the challenge. When Kanye West beat 50 Cent in 2007's Graduation/Curtis face off, he opened up what it could mean to be the biggest name in hip-hop — suddenly it was OK to be an avant-garde-fetishizing meterosexual who rapped about his insecurities. It's not just Kanye — the biggest hip-hop album of '08 is Tha Carter III, the work of avowed weirdo Li'l Wayne, who raps about being from outer space, or maybe a robot, and recently told XXL that eccentric Missy Elliott was one of his biggest influences.
Am I a deluded optimist, or might the rise of Kanye and Wayne signal an opening up of the "rapper" role, one that might allow space for women? Submitted by on October 9, 2008 - 5:00pm. |
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1. Jack White = God
2. Meg White can play.
3. This makes me want a new record of The White Stripes
4. More women in Hip Hop would be nice
5. More women are always nice
6. Stop count down ...
it's over
omg, 50 Cent looks like a neanderthal with the eyebrows and the chin and all... or whatever you call that stage before homo-whatever-we-are. Homo-Sapiens?... w/e I always thougth there was something weird about him, something creepy, I don't like him. I heard him on the radio a couple of weeks ago and thought of that eminem-rap about moby, and thought: thank god that that whole thing is over, someone should tell 50 to stop
convulsing/twitchingtrying, accept and move on. :)I think you're right, at least I hope so ;)
girl, 20, charming but insane...
wha????!!
My jaw *dropped* when I read your comment.
First, let me say that I'm no fan of 50 cent. Nevertheless, your description of his appearance - literally, his facial structure, etc - strikes me as blatantly racist. Perhaps this wasn't your intention, but I think comparing an African-American male to a neanderthal or a pre-Homo-Sapien is treading a very fine line and likely to piss off a lot of people, not just me.
Let's assume for a moment you didn't intend for your comment to be read as racist - regardless, his physical appearance has absolutely nothing to do with his talent, ability, etc. Maybe if you said his style sucked or something, I'd get it. But commenting on the way someone was born does not seem like useful commentary on here, IMHO.
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better. ~Laurie Anderson
Oh, please. Can we leave
Oh, please.
Can we leave off the outraged Political Correctness for once? He has a very pronounced brow ridge, a feature commonly associated with overly developed, let's say, "traditional masculine" characteristics. And yes, the social development of male behaviour (from your traditional chauvinist to your modern sensitive poet) is often likened to human evolution. We can't comment on that because he's black? (Yes, by the way, it's OK to say "black" again).
Sure it's kind of a stupd thing to say in our hyper-sensitive culture, but do you seriously think the poster was being racist?
And regarding your second point: It may have nothing to do with his talent, but it has everything to do with his image - hyper-masculine and even brutal, as the blog post mentions - which he has always played up, and which was definitely being highlighted by that cover photo (and which, after all, is what sells records, not talent).
Oh, small pet peeve: Homo sapiens - no hyphen, capital 'H', small 's', and, strictly speaking, it should be italicized.
Saying it's
I apologize
In my opinion it would be racist if I said something about both these guys, because the have the exactly the same teint. But as I compared their faces, it just came to me how different their structures were. If it were to be 2 white man I would have said the same, because it doesn't matter to me what kind of skintone someone has.
I am no racist, I'm dutch and I moved to germany a few years ago. Believe me I know everything about prejudgements and people treating you differently because of a different culture (and we don't even look different).
I apologize if my comment has hurt your feelings, I never ment for it to do that.
I live in a very hiphop dominated little hellhole in germany, and you could not go for a walk after sunset because of the "gangstas" (and I'm talking about "white people" here)"taking over" the arrea. And because of that change in music attitude (not only kanye but also a few rappers here in Germany) things have changed, and I am realy grateful for that.
and again I do not intend for my comments to hurt someone, it's my point of view and I am happy if someone comments on that and gives me reasons to look at things differently.
language errors are free of charge ;)
girl, 20, charming but insane...
I'm not a fan of 50 Cent,
well.
I don't thin it's that we don't get a lot of coverage, (which of course we don't, but.) but there haven't been many female rappers to come out in recent years; Foxy Brown, Lil Kim and all that were pretty major during their prime, but the last album either of them dropped was trash. Missy is following suit; she's still big, but her music just isn't as good as it was when 'Miss E..So Addictive' was released in 01. She'd make a hell of a producer, though. (Sorta a Jermaine Dupri type thing there.) Gangsta Boo is supposed to release a new album this year (so i heard, but it's already October), and she never got the shine she deserved. (ok so she's superhood but i'm basically in love with her an La Chat) which is I think why she left Hypnotize Minds (DJ Paul/ Juicy J/Three Six Mafia's label)but yeah. I don't listen to a whole lot of radio/MTV as of late, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of female rappers gettin major deals period, and not to blast, but the majoity of the indie female rappers i hear really need to clean up their sound before they think about makin it big.
Suddenly I just thought of 'Miss Rap Supreme' and if most of the chicks sound like THAT? Man. You can see why we're not gettin any coverage.
I got a dick like a mule...with a big dick.
what no lauryn?
honestly before we adress the issue of female emcees or the lack there of there are other issues that need to be adressed first. lyrical content damn near doesn't exist anymore. i'm not just talking about the standard soulja boy argument cuz before everybody was doing his little catchy dance (i'm guilty of that too) hip hop was in a bad state. it became over sexed and the females are just as guilty of that too. i'm not missing artist like lil kim, foxy brown, trina or eve. the ones i'm missing are female counterparts to artist like talib kweli, the roots, common. you know the "neo-soul" artist. where's lauryn hill at?
*********************************
its my responsibilty to show emotion in my life
cuz otherwise it seems i'm going through the motions with my life
EXACTLY!!!!
I was wondering the same
I was wondering the same thing about Lauryn Hill! She always had such a sophisticated style.
Santogold is definitely my artist of the year, but she really isn't hip-hop... pop with a bit of grime is probably more accurate. But she rocks and needs to get way more recognition than she's getting right now!
Really miss her
Ready or Not
lol, I heard that, even though I'm a sucker for one hit wonders like "Crank that superhero" and "ay bay bay"..I miss Lauryn too, she's the best of both worlds, but I like her singing a lot better.
damn can't believe I only got "ready or not" in my ipod. wtf!
-<_>_<_>_<_>_<_>_<_>
"The first duty of a man is to think for himself"
Jose Marti
Lauryn Hill
Sorry to be blunt but the
Sorry to be blunt but the MAINSTEAM female emcee's are TRASH! and for real its harder as women to break out in the male dominated Rap world.. not necessarily hip hop there is a difference like the difference between pop and r&b missy is a hip hop artist not a rapper. Missy does pretty well but if you look back at this year the MEN who were nominated did big things, they had number one singles.. Wanye sold a million copies in ONE WEEK! thats pop/ rock star numbers Kanye almost did the same thing, as much as i despise fiddy he does decent numbers ugh.. and my boy Jay consistantly has number one albums i think he's tied with the beatles or number 2 with number one albums.. but he HARDLY gets nominated for anything anymore. It is and has been a man run industry. However our women can do it but rappers like Kim and Foxy need to get off that selling their bodies and ish in their lyrics and come with some content! something uplifting to women.. but the catch to that is will they sell records, will they have number one singles?? nope! look at lupe he's on a diff level he's not the "cool" rapper and he gets walked on.. the game is just messed up
If you want the weather to change wait five minutes, if you want my opinion to change, go f%$k yourself.
myspace.com/mdotlove
check me out and leave some love!
Sorry, I gotta say this...
"The most high-profile new mainstream female rock player of the recent years might be Meg White, the "muse" and quiet sidekick to "genius" Jack White of the White Stripes. She is better known as the subject of "can-she-play-or-not?" debates than for her skills."
I'm sorry, I know I'm going to sound like a bitch, but what skills?! As a chick drummer, I've gotta say that I'm horribly disapointed that Meg White is the most well known female drummer that's out there at the moment. Have you ever tried playing along to a White Stipes song? Ever noticed that you're always out of time? It's not you. It's her. I can't stand her. Yes, less is more some times. But keeping time is nice, too. GUH. She kills me.
For the record, my favourite chick drummer will always be Janet Weiss from Sleater-Kinney.
Back on topic, Australian hip hop has a couple of good female acts. Macromatics is awesome, she's funny and quick and just cool. Check her out if you can find her. Foreign Heights are pretty good, but a little more simple.
I'm no drummer, but have
I'm no drummer, but have you ever thought about the fact, that she might be playing "out of time" as a musical feature ? And have you ever heard her play other then with The White Stripes ?
Even Jacks musical characteristics might be weird to some ears, while playing in duo with Meg, but that's just the way they sound and has nothing to do with bad music skills.
I hope I wrote understandable, because I'm no native speaker.
The the discussion about the comment to 50 cents face:
Gosh people, you can't deny that he looks this way in that picture, that has nothing to do with racism. I hate racism and I come from a country (Germany), which unfortunatly has a very bad history when it comes to that theme ( at that place I'm sorry for the dutch girl. I hope your experiences were not to bad in Germany ).But this is not the room to discuss racism. I just think that the comment from the beginning was not meant to offend any afro-american it was just relating to one special person, whatever his skin colour is and if you would compare his shape to one of a neaderthal you could not deny the alikeness. And yes there are also white man who look like these and asien and and and ... To me it's sad that there is still the need to explain that.
i feel like there are alot
quote: He has a very
quote: He has a very pronounced brow ridge - is that not because his brow is furrowed?? or whatever... he's got an angry type expression, so you'd expect that. he looks fine in other pictures!
also on 50 cent - tbh, i thought the massacre was poor. get rich or die trying was definitely a lot better. i couldn't get into the massacre.
kanye - i liked college dropout and late registration, but didn't like graduation that much.
i'm going through my ipod here and the female rappers i have are:
estelle, eve, fergie, mary j, missy, ms dynamite and i guess you can include Left Eye, as i have TLC stuff, and Lauryn Hill as i have the Fugees on here, too. i do have lauryn's solo stuff, just not on my ipod.
obviously that's just what's on my ipod, but at this precise moment i can't think of any other female rappers that i have on cd.
there's also the whole 'but would you call her a rapper?' argument. some probably won't classify fergie as a rapper, but she does rap. same with mary j blige.
ask me to name the male rappers, and the list will be a lot longer. again, the same 'is he a rapper?' argument applies here too. but there are still a lot more male rappers on here.
i'm not sure why i have more male than female, exactly. obviously there are more male rappers, but i guess it's more to do with the fact i'm not always that keen on female rappers. some of their voices grate on me, and i just can't listen to them.
maybe also the fact they go on about their life of violence and gang banging and you have this misconception that females don't get involved in that shit. i know that's wrong, but listening to those words coming from a male rapper seems a lot more real than coming from a female rapper.
having said that, there are so many male rappers that talk about this stuff and then it's proved that it's all lies, that they had a decent upbringing and weren't involved in any of the stuff they sing about.
also, female rappers seem to swear and talk dirty a lot more, which tbh, is just not needed. you can rap about stuff without it having to be expletive ridden. maybe that's another reason i can't get into that many female rappers - swearing from them sounds so wrong, where as from their male counterparts it sounds alright. strange logic, but it's true. when women swear, people are like, oh look at the mouth on her', where as it's not said often about men.
i guess from that, rapping isn't lady like. maybe that's the problem.
edit: oh and about lil wayne, his 500 degreez was a better album than the stuff he is releasing now. on lollipop he sounds so slow and like drugs have messed with his brain. such a waste.
Shifting Tide