GUEST POST BY FEGOSSEN:
Hip-hop gets a bad rep in the feminist world. Songs like “Get Low”, “Lollipop”, “Slow Motion”, and “Golddigger” paint a pretty ugly picture for the rap artists out there. This is vastly unfair. Yeah, the majority of rappers and hip-hop artists are men who have a tendency to focus on a rather sexist male perspective. I recently looked up the lyrics to Freddie Gibb’s “Shame” and realized, yeah, it’s a song about the walk of shame. Oh, and how good Freddie Gibbs is in bed. (I’m still listening though. Gibbs is amazing.)
But the female hip-hop artist isn’t about to put up with this shit. They’re probably some of the most liberated voices out there, not just as shining beacons in a form known for its objectification of women, but also as the voice of women. Here are three albums all by female rap artists every feminist should be listening to:
- Queen Latifah’s Black Reign
http://www.amazon.com/dp/images/B000001AL0
Instinct leads me to another flow everytime I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a hoe trying to make a sister feel low you know all of that gots to go
This album is fantastic, 90’s rap from someone we (at least I) often forget used to rap. The song “U.N.I.T.Y” is an angry rant at the men who think they can just smack your ass whether you’re wearing cut off shorts (oh nineties, we miss you) or sweat pants, and will call girls a bitch. In “Mood is Right”, Queen Latifah tells us she thinks the sex is better if you’re in love and that she really doesn’t need anyone else. This icon was giving women a voice long before Chicago.