The Female MC
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The female MC. She exists. I know she does. I’ve seen her at my local open mic. I’ve seen her on cheesy reality shows. I’ve heard her on college and independent radio. I’ve seen her at female MC showcases. I’ve read her flows on web cyphers. I’ve seen her on My Space. But how come I don’t hear her on KMEL or see her video on MTV or BET? Yeah, I can catch some out dated joint by Lil’ Kim or Foxy Brown and Lauryn Hill’s flows never get old, but, where is the new generation of female MCs?It’s a man’s world. I get this. Men run and ruin this world at their will. Women clean up the mess, however that may manifest itself. Hip Hop, the progressive counter-culture that we may be, still subscribes to sexist values that choke the female MCs voice. The male dominated industry of Hip Hop still lacks faith in the female MC.
A few weeks ago I was at a function when a few men started to talk about Hip Hop. This issue having been on my mind for awhile now prompted me to tell the men that there are no new female MCs on the radio and quite frankly Hip Hop, the industry, doesn’t seem to give a hoot. The response, by one Bay Area MC, was “Who gives a shit? If there were females dope enough to be heard, they would be.” His response angered me. There are most certainly female MCs trying to be heard who are dope enough to be put on. And there are most certainly wack male MCs getting breaded out for spitting garbage!
One might say that just like the women’s liberation struggle, only women can uplift women. Thus, the responsibility of putting female MCs into the mainstream falls on the shoulders of women. But the truth is that the heads of major labels, major radio stations are not women. The labels are run by men. It’s a man’s world.
So, just like with the women’s struggle for equality, the challenge to put talented female MCs into the mainstream, requires that men join our cause. If the same ol’ cookie cutter gangster, ride or die female MC is what the mainstream allows for, why haven’t we had a new one of those in few years? What’s the problem?
The entertainment biz is cutthroat. It’s musical chairs, there’s never enough room for everybody to play. If you are trying to blow up as an MC, the threat that the next MC will take your spot is real, and can happen at any given moment. The public fan base is wishy-washy and easily distracted, often only offering unconditional loyalty after your dead and gone. Investment into an MC can be risky. But with no female MCs to speak of, why not take the leap? Why not offer up something new to a male gangster MC saturated radio line up? Isn’t that why Lil’ Wayne gave us Drake or why T-Pain resurrected the auto-tune, to come new? The same shit over and over gets played out, that’s why T-Pain’s auto-tune craze is already falling off.
I am a grown woman. I have kids to raise. The truth is a pain I need in order to arm my children for the real world. The reality that it’s a man’s world doesn’t distract me from other truths, such as, women have the right to be heard, even if it unsettles their men’s world.
The truth is that a crop of female MCs to shake up the game would be both a wise financial and cultural investment into the future of Hip Hop. Let’s step our game up!
Lemme cut to the chase, Kanye West is phony as was his contrived outburst when he rushed the stage to disrupt an acceptance speech from country singer Taylor Swift, during last night’s MTV Video Music Awards. It was a perfectly executed stunt which was designed to make national headlines (which it did). It was designed to become among the top trending topics in twitter and one of the hot key words in google (which it is). It was obviously designed to take away attention from issues at hand as Kanye’s outburst overshadowed many of the performances and presenters including the Michael Jackson tribute.
In the case of the townhall disruptions, we already know that many of these ‘grassroots’ , ‘spontaneous’ gatherings were actually orchestrated and seeded by lobbyists and corporations with the main groups being Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity. Expensive PR firms were hired and a strategy was developed instructing people how to systematically disrupt townhalls. This included, spreading out amongst the crowd to give the appearance as being larger in numbers, rattling the sensibilities of a congressperson early on by shouting and aggressively challenging him/her and just generally being disruptive so that what got reported on the evening news was people shouting down the congressperson and not the finer points of healthcare.
Over the Labor Day weekend Van Jones, a member of the Hip Hop generation and special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council for Environmental Quality, tendered his resignation, and it was accepted by the Obama administration. I will be the first to say that I never found Van Jones to be a radical, a Black Nationalist or a communist as Fox News has suggested.
Breakdown FM podcast-Interview w/ Fox News Pundit Marc Lamont Hill
Its been a long time since we heard from the President Barack Obama who many of us enthusiastically elected into office. It was the Obama who was passionate, inspiring, hopeful and clear. It was an Obama who wasn’t capitulating and forever apologizing. It was good to hear President Obama for once directly take on his critics and dispel many of the myths, lies and distortions that have plagued aspects of his Health Reform Bill… We give President Obama an ‘A’ for style and an ‘A’ for effort…
At this point in time, if President Obama is able to get through a Healthcare Bill that has a strong public option then that will be a good thing. It’ll be a good thing from where we sit right now where everything is in disarray and a Democratic dominated House and Senate are divided with so called Blue Dog Dems going at it with Progressive Dems. Dems who are middle of the road have been floundering between Fox News inspired lies and talking points and 30 second soundbites for various aspects of an 1100 word document that they’ve amassed for themselves.
Former Vice Presidential candidate Rosa Clemente of the Green Party finally jumped in and responded to the pervasive question; ‘How can we pay for all this’?
Yall know I’m a Media Literist. (Yeah I went Keith Murray on that one.) So when Glenn “Looney Tunes” Beck started to take shots at Van Jones I watched the situation very closely. Of course Van’s old group which he co-founded but is no longer associated, Color of Change set it off on Beck costing him almost 60 advertisers and almost his job, but these Right Wing dudes do not lay down.