It feels like there’s more room than ever for these women to do whatever they want: wear a hoodie or overalls or a bikini write lyrics that discuss sex or politics use classic soul samples or brash pop choruses. While once artists such as Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown were expected to pander to that male gaze while also being discredited for displaying their sexuality, in 2020 artists like Megan Thee Stallion – rapping bars such as “You know I ain’t come boy if you had to ask me” – unabashedly express sexual desire from a woman’s perspective. Photograph: Jordan Curtis Hughes/PR HANDOUT In 2020, though, the industry is clamouring for their talents: the likes of Rico Nasty, Flo Milli and Rapsody are all signed to major labels, all creating vastly different but universally excellent music. “It’s still not at a level where I’m getting a balanced amount of female rap,” she says, “so until we get to that place I do have to proactively seek out female rap to play.”Īs recently as 2017, US rapper and record executive Rick Ross notoriously stated that he wouldn’t sign a woman to his label because “ I always thought I would end up fucking a female rapper” – which spoke volumes about an industry that saw women as objects. While BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ Tiffany Calver doesn’t think it should be remarkable that she’s the first woman to host the station’s Rap Show, she makes the effort to discover and support female rappers because her male peers may not. This solidarity has been fostered by the influx of women working across the music business. We’ve built a relationship coming to each other’s shows, being in each other’s videos – if I need them, they’re there.” I think that idea is fuelled by men in the industry because it’s entertaining for them.” Br3nya says that when she started out, peers like Alicai Harley and Ms Banks “were very welcoming, supporting my stuff from the gate. “But it never crossed my mind when I started making music that there wouldn’t be space for me. “I’m very aware of the narrative of ‘There can only be one queen’ that’s been put into women’s heads,” says rising London rapper Br3nya. Now displays of friendship and support, along with in-jokes on social media timelines are much more common.Īrtists like Megan Thee Stallion unabashedly express sexual desire from a woman’s perspective Just two years later, however, the mood has changed and this kind of spat is rare and feels undignified. Even as recently as 2018, when Cardi B threw a shoe at Nicki Minaj during a red carpet confrontation, they have been encouraged to tear their rivals down. Now, however, we’re at a point where there are several successful female rappers who support, rather than compete with, one another.Įver since Queens rapper Roxanne Chanté called out pretty much all of her contemporaries back in the mid-80s, women in hip-hop have been pitted against each other. Megan Thee Stallion’s rise – alongside US contemporaries such as City Girls and Doja Cat as well as UK talent including Stefflon Don and Ms Banks – felt inconceivable even a few years ago. M uch like the rest of the music industry, hip-hop, rap and grime have traditionally been male-dominated spaces.
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