Songs like “Ladies First” and “UNITY,” which discussed domestic violence, street harassment, and the need for coalition-building between females, made the New Jersey native a powerful voice for change. The Native Tongues collective were known for their socially conscious, largely positive lyrical content, but Latifah made a name for herself talking about issues in the lives of black women. Part of the New York area’s storied Native Tongues crew, along with the likes of Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah was one of the earliest female rappers in hip-hop. In recent years, Lyte herself has called for the Female Rap Solo category to be reinstated, saying “it destroys culture to not have the perspective of a woman.” In 1993, “Ruffneck” was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Single, making MC Lyte the first female rapper nominated for a Grammy. There may have been setbacks but I never let them get to me.” But none of it affected me to a degree to where it mattered.

In a line-up, they didn’t want to put me where my songs warranted me going. “There may have been times when promoters didn’t want to pay me what I deserved. She has described the scene in its early days as competitive and skill-based, but not without a gender bias. Lyte’s flow, lyrical precision, and refusal to self-censor gained her industry attention quickly. The first solo rapper to release her own, full-length album, MC Lyte’s Lyte As A Rock dropped in 1988.

They all had distinct variations in style, flow, and lyrical content, but what each woman had in common was a fiercely independent voice and the power to remain consistently and resoundingly herself.

But in the early days of the genre, while critics were still deriding hip-hop as a passing fad, female rappers were beginning to make up a formidable piece of the genre’s biology, unapologetically detailing their interpretations and experiences of the world they lived in. Braggadocious lyrics about violence, sex, swagger, and masculinity reign in a space where women, in most cases, are cast as either conquests or a faceless Greek chorus, their own stories largely ignored. Male and female rappers alike used wordplay, repetition, and extended metaphor to relate experiences that were dark, violent, romantic, or hopeful, casting themselves as hero, witness, or seer.īut given the music industry’s history of marginalizing the contributions of women, it’s easy to see hip-hop as a boys’ club. Just as the sound of the movement was created by the creative repurposing of music that already existed, the success of the genre’s MCs was based on their willingness to shatter old forms and wield the shards to create a new style of self-expression. From the start, hip-hop was about storytelling.

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