Africa

Hip- Hop at 50: How women have shaped the game

Rasheeda Frost’s decades-long relationship with hip-hop started in 1981. She was a curious, energetic kindergartener β€” eager to touch and explore anything put in front of her.

Rasheeda remembered her mother presenting her with a huge, white box β€” it was a record player that she would continuously spin, not knowing what its purpose was. Then, she said, her mom gave her a record with a colorful cornucopia printed in the middle: The Sugarhill Gang.

β€œShe must’ve just known hip-hop was embedded in me at such a young age,” the MTV β€œLove and Hip-Hop: Atlanta” reality star said.

The then 5-year-old would dance until she couldn’t anymore. β€œI played that record until I tore it up and scratched up the record.”

Frost fell in love with hip-hop. Lyrics, music videos, and magazine covers display a genre that is male-centered and male-dominated. Despite this challenge, Frost took her passion a step further and joined the ranks of female rappers and emcees who battled misogynoir, sexism, and patriarchy to send hip-hop spinning in a different direction, making way for women to take the main stage in the genre.

β€œI had to go out there and work triple as hard, make sure I’m respected, not get taken advantage of as a female, and really go hard for what I know and stand for something,” Frost said.

From The Sequence releasing the first rap record by an all-female group, called β€œFunk You Up” in 1979, to MC Sha-Rock’s iconic performance on β€œSNL” as a part of Funky 4+1, female rappers have been a part of hip-hop since its debut. Women have fought to shape their identification in hip-hop and demand recognition.

In the 50 years since DJ Kool Herc extended breaking at a back-to-school party, women have gone from donning a male-imitated aesthetic, to owning their sexuality in lyrics, to selling out stadiums for their own concerts. At hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, female rappers are taking their moment to shine β€” while still demanding respect and facing decades-old challenges.

Source: Africanews

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