There was a time when an award show wasn’t complete without a hot female hip-hop artist being called up to the podium. If we were to judge by the lineup of VH1 Hip-Hop Honors or the nominations for BET Hip-Hop Awards, there are no sisters worthy of this honor. Just the usual suspects Kanye, Lil Wayne, and Jay-Z. Margeaux Watson provided the scoop in this week’s Entertainment Weekly.
But what is even more interesting is that someone like Estelle doesn’t stand much of a chance of blowing up like Missy or Eve a few years back because folks in the industry believe it costs too much to launch a female rapper’s career. (They point to stuff like hair & makeup and wardrobe which can be 10x more than a male.) Plus, it is even harder to win a Grammy when the Recording Academy eliminated one of the categories for women in 2005. MC Lyte is on the case with the campaign to get the category reinstated. But it is going to be hard because most today’s female hip-hop artist aren’t racking up platinum sales.
In fact, the newest artists in the game like Lil Mama and Ms Dynamite among others, are only a few notches above struggling. Kinda cute yes, but not really blowing die-hard hip-hop fans out of the water. So when BET presents The Hip-Hop Awards at the end of next month, they are including a tribute to female rappers. Perhaps because they believe that our greatest female hip-hop artists are in the past. How wrong are they?
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This article was well written and I agree that upcoming female artist are struggling they are also underrated. I am a female rap artist and I feel like if you want a change you have to be diffrent weve set ourselves up to be the weoman that the men rap about a lot of the time so thats what people are use to seeing us as “sex kittens”. If we can step outside the box and really get black weoman to change their thinking and opinion of the way we should be through our music will have a much greater impact. Thats my thought on the situation.
I feel like u get what u deserve,u Jus gotta go real hard and main thing u gotta be different, anybody can claim 2 be an emcee but it takes hard work 2 get the recognition u want, Ima rapper though so I’m speakin from an emcee’s perspective
If you look at past female MCs, for the most part they weren’t running around showing their a$$es and every other imaginable body part. Most of the female rappers of late dont’ talk about anything. They have nothing to say and what’s worse they can’t say it without being vulgar. You do get what you deserve and today’s so called female MCs need to take a page from their predecessors.