At instances, it is laborious being a fan of hip-hop. I am usually conflicted realizing that girls, particularly Black ladies, who helped create a music model and tradition celebrated worldwide, are nonetheless handled like sexual objects meant to serve the gaze of males. This weight makes it so troublesome to embrace the style that I’ve loved my complete life when rappers like Doja Cat, Flo Milli, Rico Nasty, and others convey a lot extra to the desk than their appears.
Although I totally loved listening to hip-hop within the early 2000s, I at all times puzzled why most of what I heard revolved across the look or really feel of a girl’s physique. And rising up, I noticed video vixens get far more consideration than ladies musicians. The dialog round ladies’s sexuality in hip-hop predates my expertise with the style, however the age-old debate may be traced again to its inception. Roxanne Shanté, one of many first few feminine hip-hop pioneers, not too long ago recalled her expertise when the rise of video vixens started overshadowing feminine rappers, which nonetheless impacts at the moment’s era of artists. “What they did was they made the video woman extra essential than the feminine rapper,” Shanté mentioned throughout the ABC Information particular The Actual Queens of Hip-Hop: The Girls Who Modified the Sport. “So now what occurs is the expertise that the feminine rapper now possesses is overshadowed by sexualizing the feminine in hip-hop. So then you’ve got the following era of feminine rapper who comes out, who says, ‘OK, now I am attractive and I am proficient . . . So now what are you going to do?'”
“Proper now, it is about appears. You come within the recreation, it is uncommon to look [slim] like me.”
Physique picture is the point of interest for a lot of new feminine rappers, one other tactic used to field them out of this male-dominated area. As we speak’s feminine rappers are anticipated to “look” the half in any respect prices. So not solely do they should compete with (and outdo) their male counterparts, however they really feel like they need to look higher than the video-vixens-turned-Instagram-models, too. The “BBL look” these musicians are anticipated to undertake is one purpose so many new artists really feel they don’t have any alternative however to succumb to see stress and alter their complete picture. “Proper now, it is about appears,” 21-year-old rapper Lakeyah instructed hip-hop veteran Angie Martinez. “You come within the recreation, it is uncommon to look [slim] like me.” Lakeyah additionally mentioned she’s heard a number of “options” from strangers to contemplate modifying her physique surgically, particularly to boost her bottom, and he or she’s not the one one who’s suffered from this stress. Rappers like Coi Leray and Child Tate each had the unlucky expertise of being trolled on-line and shamed for his or her pure our bodies, an all-too-common development for any feminine rapper who does not have a BBL look, and that is the place the disconnect between feminine rappers’ bodily appearances and their precise expertise lies. When will we recover from bodily appearances and eventually deal with these proficient emcees’ expertise?
Again throughout Shanté’s hip-hop period within the mid ’80s, she famous that “it was all about battle rhymes and battle raps.” So when she broke into the trade, she needed to stroll in “with a certain quantity of confidence.” Different artists like Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, and Da Brat adopted in her footsteps with that very same confidence to put in writing their very own guidelines. However at the moment, that confidence does not appear to quantity to a lot when the success of a feminine rapper is solely based mostly on not possible physique requirements and never the flexibility to grasp her craft. Nonetheless, there is a distinction between over-sexualization and rappers who select to personal their sexuality. On the one hand, altering virtually the whole lot in regards to the bodily essence of a feminine rapper permits the lads on this area to carry energy. However on the opposite, feminine rappers telling this trade precisely who they’ll be is how they take that energy proper again. Simply have a look at icons like Lil Kim and Trina who flipped the whole thought of objectification and sexuality. Their sexual legacies put them in management, and a long time later, it is liberated artists like Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, the Metropolis Ladies, and others who did the identical. Sure, they might nonetheless get backlash for his or her raunchy materials and appears, however rap followers respect them as a result of they do not waiver. They navigate the backlash with their heads held excessive they usually perceive that they don’t seem to be simply standing up for themselves however for a complete era and even future ones.
Seeing these ladies be themselves wholeheartedly has inspired extra empowerment actions and seeing different ladies rallying behind songs like “WAP” has been liberating. As a 20-something, it is nonetheless robust determining easy methods to digest hip-hop and the way in which ladies who seem like me are represented, however understanding the nuances of this tradition helps me decide what messages apply and what I ought to ignore. As a girl, there isn’t any excellent technique to love hip-hop once we nonetheless grapple with whether or not or not this tradition truly loves us again, however trying towards the ladies who proceed to hold the torch for us brings me, not less than, some degree of consolation that we’ll make our approach by this area as we at all times have.
Picture Supply: Getty / Tim Mosenfelder