Women in Hip-Hop in the year 2020
A Brief History of Rap.
To understand the importance that the year 2020 has had for women in Rap and the music industry, we must first take a look back at how Rap got to the point that it is at today and the misogynistic barriers that had to be broken down for the women in rap today to reach the heights they have. Hip-Hop was developed in parties in inner cities, it came from poverty, it came from struggles, and it came from a culture that popular media at the time had ignored. A more exact origin of Hip-Hop could be the Bronx in 1973 when DJ Kool Herc took his Jamaican roots and improvised poetic lines of music. From here Rap has obviously exploded into a large cultural phenomenon that has, in some form, taken over popular culture for decades. Early rap in the 70s and 80s was generally simple and generally came directly from the inner cities that Hip-Hop was born out of. This era attempted to communicate the issues in their lives and even have a positive impact on their communities. In the later 80s and into the 90s “Gangsta Rap” took over and continued to talk about the issues in inner cities, but started to glorify the drugs, gangs, and violence instead of trying to change it. Out of this developed a more pop era of rap where rappers were no longer talking about the issues of inner-city life, now rappers were rapping about their success and their money. In this era of rap materialism and excess became the more important message of the song. Throughout all of this history, however, the cultures of Hip-Hop have been plagued by things like misogyny and homophobia. While misogyny has been an ever-present fixture on Rap in the 80s and 90s it became an even more pronounced issue, as gangsta rappers started to more than ever before rap about women as though they were objects or subservient to men. This only became worse in the era of pop-rap because some rappers bragged about their conquests with women as a form of success, essentially turning these women into goals of achievements rather than human beings. Within the last few years, however, women have started to become a lot more successful and start to change the culture of rap and walk back the misogyny that has been a part of the community for so long.
Misogyny in rap
In the history of rap, there has always been a stigma against women in the culture. Even when early rap borrowed culture from young black women in the form of taking inspiration from schoolyard jump rope rhymes. While some women have been able to navigate this disadvantage, it has lead to a culture that makes women unwelcome and limits the success of women in the industry. The women who have been able to make it in Hip Hop have in the past generally had to act in specific ways and create specific images in order to become and stay successful in the rap industry. Due to the way that our society treats women, for a woman to become as successful as their male counterpart in popular culture, they have found themselves categorized by the “Madonna-Whore Complex”. This is a theory “suggesting that men cast women into one of two categories to allay the uncomfortable dichotomy of fear and desire: the Madonna (women he admires and respects) and the whore (women he is attracted to and therefore disrespects).” Of course, this is a flawed theory, but still, many women in rap have been treated as though they have to fit into one of these two roles. Some women in rap have tried to act feminine and pure, which is generally not a great fit for the most popular themes in rap. Other women have plated the other role and used their extreme sexuality as a method of marketing, and while this has worked for some women it also usually leads to their skill or achievements being downplayed. The most common way that women in the past have been able to make their place in the rap industry is to play a tomboy role in order to try to avoid being looked at through the lens of the “Madonna-Whore complex”. Rappers like Queen Latifah, Salt-N-Peppa, and many others used these personas in order to command respect in the industry and while it may have worked for them it also is an unfair standard that limits the way that the artist can express themselves. Part of what made rap so successful in the first place was that young people from poor communities were able to rap about issues that were in many ways unique to them, and that were not being represented in other places, Unfortunately for women in rap, it seems that the culture has had a history of not wanting to hear about struggles that may be unique to them. It is not all bad news though, as the culture of rap moves forward and time moves on rap is slowly becoming a more welcoming place for women, and for every woman that finds success in the rap industry the history of misogyny starts to be pushed back just a little bit.
Early women in rap
Due to the history of misogyny in the industry for most people, it is probably hard to even name some of the early women who helped make Hip-Hop what it is today. As mentioned above, one example of the impact of women on Hip-Hop was how rap borrowed culture from young black girls in the form of taking inspiration from jump rope rhyme but this is a very small part of the role that women have played in Hip-Hop. One of the very first women rappers was Sha Rock who was a part of the group Funky Four + One and later formed the group Us Girls. She got her start as a B-girl in the south Bronx and had an affiliation to the Zulu Nation, which was a Hip-Hop awareness group.
Another very early woman in Rap was Roxanne Shante, who was the first woman rapper to have a hit single in the song “Roxanne’s Revenge”. This song was basically a dis track against the misogyny in rap (specifically in the song Roxanne Roxanne by U.T.F.O.) and was the start of one of the first rap beefs. There were many resonance records, “estimates range from 30 to 100. In today’s terms, Roxanne became a meme.”
This is one of the very earliest examples of a woman in rap pushing back against the misogyny in rap, but as you can see it did not go without its retaliation. Shante faced brutal musical counterattacks, including questioning her gender, criticizing her weight, and dis tracks on her parents. Shante went on to release 2 albums and then retire at the age of 25 to pursue a college education. While Shante did not continue her career, she, along with many other very early women in rap opened the door for more women to take their place in the rap industry. This has included some really notable women throughout the 80s and 90s such as Queen Latifah, Lil Kim, Salt-N-Peppa, and many more.
More Recent women in hip-hop
From the 2000s to now, we have seen many more really successful female rappers in the world of hip-hop. The progress women in rap made in the decades before continued into the 2000s and 2010s, but there is one person who can really be considered to be the most Iconic woman in rap from this era, Nicki Minaj whose career blossomed throughout the 2000s and 2010s and continues on today. Nicki Minaj began her career in the early 2000s and got picked up by a label after posting some of her music on myspace. She released her first mixtape in 2007 and was signed to Young Money Entertainment in August of 2009. By domination seen throughout her work, her verses are elite and always tend to lean on the side of the masculine, by even challenging some of the most well-known male artists. One of the most important parts of her work is that she has been able to balance both a masculine and a feminine persona. Niki Minaj is able to refer to herself as a barbie while still rapping like the men around her would and commanding respect in the process. This is something that earlier women in rap would not have been able to do in the same way, and it is important to note that this is possible because of the women in rap that have come before her to push the culture towards this standard. Women like Lil Kim specifically have paved the way for Nicki Minaj to get to where she is. Her work from the beginning always was a battleground of standards in society and she often challenged male rappers and how they were seen in society. Her art has made a point about hip-hop culture through the production of her songs, she has time and time again referenced the double standards in the industry. She is extremely vocal when it comes to how men and women are seen differently within the culture, and overall her music ultimately paved a way for women all across the world and is a big contributor to women’s success across the hip-hop culture.
Female Artists in 2020
The year 2020 was a year like no other for a multitude of reasons, but it was also a year that saw female rappers shine the brightest within the hip-hop community, with multiple hit records taking the world by storm. Thanks to the events of 2020 and the few years leading up to it, Cardi B, Megan thee stallion, and Doja Cat are some of the most well-known, not just female rappers, but rappers in general in hip-hop culture today. These women are modern icons and they have become more popular than many of their male counterparts, which is something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. The year 2020 was a year that saw women change hip-hop forever. There are many ways that women in rap broke records and made waves in 2020, so let’s go through just some of them. Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat, and Megan Thee Stallion all had their first №1 singles in 2020. Doja Cat’s song “Say So” was the first single by two female rappers to reach the top of the charts, and the song “WAP” followed close behind it. While these achievements may be historic, they are nothing compared to the “renaissance of sorts” which is happening in Hip-Hop today, as Bruana Younger says in her NPR article 2020 Was The Year Female Rappers Dominated, “To know what tomorrow sounds like, one need only listen to the women in rap today.” Women in rap today are forcing people to take them seriously and give them the respect they deserve. For the first time, women in rap can be feminine and talk about their sexuality in their music and still be widely successful. Of course, there are many more woman rappers that aren’t setting records or making headlines, but they are still able to take advantage of the fact this renaissance is allowing women to break into the rap industry without having to justify or appeal to men. Not only does this change history but it’ll also change future generations of women within hip-hop and overall it’ll set a standard for future generations of female icons. It goes without saying that the journey for women in rap is far from over and there is still rampant misogyny in the industry, but things are starting to look a little better, a little more equal, by the day, and women in rap now more than ever have an opportunity to make themselves known in Hip-Hop and help push back the misogynistic past of the culture.
Conclusion
Overall, women have been a driving force in how the hip-hop culture has evolved from the beginning. Through adversity, female artists have defied the odds, the scrutiny, and the hatred to now change the hip-hop culture forever. With everything against them, women have had such a big force on how hip-hop is seen by the world compared to when it first originated, as well as how women are seen compared to the start. To say women had little odds of being great within hip-hop is an understatement due to how much male artists discredited them. Women are seen as icons today because of what they bring, to not just the hip-hop culture, but the world in general. Lastly from leading female groups to soloists within the vocals of how women artists have evolved, there is no point in history where women have been credited the amount they deserve, even today, but the future is bright for women within hip-hop due to recent success and achievements by individual rappers, as well as collabs. There is no doubt that the future will be run by female rappers as much as male rappers, and success will be endless.
Sources
“Cardi B and the Music Industry’s Madonna-Whore Complex.” Popdust, 17 July 2019, www.popdust.com/cardi-b-and-jermaine-dupri-2639178016.html.
Editors, Biography.com. “Roxanne Shante.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 13 May 2020, www.biography.com/musician/roxanne-shante.
Editors, TheFamousPeople.com. “Who Is Nicki Minaj? Everything You Need to Know.” TheFamousPeople.com, www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/nicki-minaj-6052.php.
IshikaSachdeva. “Are You Listening? Misogyny in Rap Music and What It Means for Women in Society.” Berkeley Political Review, bpr.berkeley.edu/2020/12/21/are-you-listening-misogyny-in-rap-music-and-what-it-means-for-women-in-society/.
“Women’s History in Hip-Hop.” Women In Hip-Hop, womenandhiphop.weebly.com/womens-history-in-hip-hop.html.
Younger, Briana. “2020 Was The Year Female Rappers Dominated.” NPR, NPR, 10 Dec. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/12/10/944625003/2020-was-the-year-female-rappers-dominated.
