I've often contemplated why female emcees have gone the way of the wholly mammoth. I've also wondered why to be honest, I don't really like most female emcees.
Most of my musings have focused on industry politics and insider's refusal to take chances and reinvent the wheel. You don't know how many executives I've spoken to who claim that female emcees won't sell, have no real audience, and require too much effort to market. Um, excuse me, but isn't that your job? These executives are so spoiled by these "ready-made" emcees that they no longer even understand the concept of real marketing, artist development and grooming a project to make audiences understand why they need the music in their lives.
Anyhow, this time, I've decided to focus on the actual female emcees, not the system. These are the emcees that need to re-evaluate themselves and get focused on making good music. They are the types of female rappers that annoy everyone (even if they won't admit it).
The Mood Ring Emcee.
If I wanted to hear about solar eclipses, how the moon has affected my life and mood and the galaxy, I would google "astrology" or buy a damn telescope. Seriously, the hell ya'll be talking about? And yes, this applies to men as well. I think because so many female emcees got their start writing poetry (another annoying cliche) they tend to be all Mother Earth-ish in their rhymes. Rapping about the Milky Way and linear equations does not make you deep. Spare me. Please.
The Butch Emcee.
This is a complex issue. This category is probably the most cliche as well. You damn near have to be gay to rhyme these days if you're not being a whore. And before you get your draws in a bunch, no, I'm not anti-gay. I'm just sayin. Somebody needs too.
The truth of the matter is, I've never understood overtly gay female emcees. In fact, if you're a female emcee and are overtly gay, you're probably wack. At the end of the day, I don't want your sexual orientation/presentation to override your music, and for too many Butchy emcee's, it does. When you hit the stage, the first thing that pops into my head should NOT be "wow, she's extra gay." It should be "wow, she's dope" or "this song is jammin." Agreed? The same would apply to dudes, if any of them ever publicly came out of the closet. Nothing wrong with being proud about who you are, but your sexual orientation shouldn't define who you are as an artist, your music should.
Not only that, but too many of these newer Butch Emcees spend so much time trying to prove how dude-like they are, they forget their female audience and lose themselves and their message in the process. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't need you trying to prove to me how hard you are to overcompensate for your feminine qualities. I could just go listen to Chingy or Lloyd Banks if that's the case.
I understand that hip-hop culture damn near breeds gay women. Hell, hip-hop hates women (as it's repeatedly proven) and over the years has insisted that we deny any real femininity in favor of overtly perverted sexuality. I also understand that there are a plethora of gay emcees who have rocked long before the 2000s... I don't need to name them, since many are still semi-in the closet. But even with those emcees, their sexuality wasn't flamboyant. They were just women who rocked, pure and simple. If they happened to be gay, in addition to being a dope emcee, cool. Again, the focus was on making good music... Let's get back to that.
The Rapping Whore.
Out of all of my little categories, this is probably the one that pisses me off the most, for a number of reasons. I think the main reason is because the majority of these women don't even write their own lyrics and do not have any real control over their packaging. Therefore, they become the real-life projected image of what some warped, chauvinistic, controlling man thinks and wants a "woman" to be. Sick shit when you think about it.
I once wrote a piece for a book (that to my knowledge has yet to be published) about how Lil Kim's Hard Core change female emcees forever. Now, I'm not going to blame Kim for killing female rappers, the same way that I won't blame Master P for killing "real hip-hop" when he got on wax and proclaimed that he wasn't a rapper, but a hustler and proceeded to sell millions of records worldwide. I will say that both P and Kim are probably the most tangible examples of the inevitable change that took place.
After Kim dropped and experienced so much success, the blueprint was set. Take a cute female with low self-esteem, get a popular rapper to write her rhymes and make sure she is dressed like a hooker at all times. The female emcee became the physical manifestation of many men's most warped fantasies about what a woman should look like. She became the physical manifestation of what some men believed women secretly coveted-- their money (using sex as weapon to achieve their goals).
Basically, the female emcee quickly lost any traces of real femininity. She lost her voice. And she hasn't really gotten it back since.
The Rapping Whore is probably the most dangerous out there, because she's the only one who has experienced a great deal of commercial success. We all know how imaging can affect and influence people, damage their perceptions of what's real and kill self-esteem. This is a prime example.
I said all of this to say female emcees, for too long, have not represented real women...average women, like me. And that's why we're losing. Again, I understand that the industry machine is like, 97 percent of the problem. You can't even get attention unless you're endorsed by a click of men. I understand that. But for a second, let's forget about men and what they want. Hell, they've totally forgotten about us on the mic, with few exceptions. Just be honest and don't be afraid. It's hard, but it's necessary for women to ever be properly represented in hip-hop again.
***On the bright side, there is a small movement of female rappers across the country starting to sprout up again. They're focused, they're perceptive and they're making good music. If you know one, please, please sponsor her before she makes a break for Europe or Japan.
