Hello Everyone
In today's class we spoke about Female Rappers.
Queen Latifa, Nicki Minaj, Alicia Keys, Lil Kim, Missy Elliot
Many feminists scholars discuss about women's role in hip hop and have looked for the symbolism inside the lyrics in female rap songs. It is argued that the woman rapper does the same as the male rapper. Females rappers rap just like the male rappers, they use symbols in a carnavalist way, just like female rappers do. They talk about violence the same way and so on. Badman = badwoman. But some female rappers are also feminine - they wear make up, they wear very feminine outfits they don't try to be a man or to take the masculine role. She does not take it out, instead, she replace it, even though she speaks the same language as the male rapper. They invert the male rapper.
The male rapper brags about the cars, the wacthes, the "bicthes". The female rapper brags about their purses, their bodies, their clothing.
Some of the female rappers though, such as Missy Elliot and Queen Latifa back in the days take masculine outfits as a counter hegemonic move.
Missy Elliot
Queen Latifah 90s
Black girls most of times don't fit into the mainstream standard of beauty. They have a different body shape, they have different hair texture - they wear afros, wigs and dread locks. So they don't try to compete with the ideal beauty type. Many times they even invert this ideal and mock it - such as what Nicki Minaj does with her blond wig and with the crazy style she has. Another style that goes out of the mainstream ideal is wearing a different hairstyle, as mentioned above, such as wearing dread locks, afros, etc, and wearing crazy wigs and crazy make ups.
Lauryn Hill's Afro
Alicia Keys Rastas
Nicki Minaj's Crazy Style and Exaggerated Blond Wig
Foxy Brown's not ideal body time
Lil Kim's blond wig and volumptuous body
What I learned today that I thought to be very interesting is that within the black community girls are more satisfied with their body images when compared to the white girls, for instance. Since they have many different role models with different body shapes and images, they are more accepting of their own body image and therefore they are more self confident.
Many of the female rappers violates how women is supposed to be - modest, submissive - by having lyrics about objectifying a women's body and mocking this ideal in a way.
Missy Elliot - Work It
Nicki Minaj - Y.U. MAD
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Female Rappers in Brazil
In my last post, that you can find by clicking here I wrote about Brazilian female rapper Nathy MC.
Nathy MC
The female rappers in Brazil are similar from the American female rappers in a way that they don't follow the mainstream ideal of beauty and they keep their own personality and style in the way they dress, behave and appear in the media.
Karol Conka
Flora Matos
\Negra Li
But I would argue that although in Brazil there is also the typical ideal of beauty as there is in the states-the super model, super skinny, beautiful blond girl - that many time the pressure is lower. In Brazil the "volomptuous" body is many times considered more beautiful than the skinny body. The majority of the men in Brazil like a girl with thick legs and a nice big ass. But many times this also brings body dissatisfaction and health problems, since many girls take steroids and work out crazily to get the so desired perfect ass. And many exaggerate to a point that their bodies get ugly. The Brazilian media is filled with pictures of these women with disproportionate body images. In Brazil they even have a competition called Miss Bum Bum (Miss butt).
Miss Bum Bum competition
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Going back to Brazilian Female Rappers. They are similar to the American female rappers in the sense that their style goes out of the norm of beauty; the ideal beauty - but the great majority of them differ from American Rappers in a sense that they talk about romantic relationships without being vulgar. They talk about a sexy women, about a women wanting a man, but with good attributes and with what the women has positive, the sensuality and the personality, without necessarily talking about their intimate body parts and using vulgarity and cursing in the lyrics.
There is so much vulgarity in Brazil already as it is, with the carnaval and with the ideal of a Hot girl and a perfect body, that the rappers in a way, use raps to oppose this idea, among other topics and themes.
Flora Matos is an example - "Pretin"
Chorus ( Pretin, you drive me crazy this way, I really want to kiss you and although you may not know it, it's only me there's no other, to change your life there's only me)
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Since the semester is now coming to an end and this will most probably be my last post here, I would like to say that at firs the idea of having to write a HipHop blog every week did not sound s0 appealing and fun to me at all. But as the weeks went by and the more I wrote about hip hop and searched for rappers, their stories, their histories, the meanings to their lyrics and so on, the more I liked writing this blog. I find the history of hip hop absolutely fascinating and each and everything I learned in class and in my researches are really interesting facts that I did not know about. I used to listen to hip hop, dance to hip hop and I knew a little bit about the lyrics and all, but I never stopped to pay attention to the hip hop culture and to the culture as a "political text". Now I look at it with different eyes, more critical and yet more passionate and I try to find meanings and symbols in lyrics more often than ever.
I have also learned so much more about Brazilian Rappers and the hip hop culture in Brazil and I really hope that I was able to bring some new insights about one of the biggest hip hop scenes in the world, which is Brazil, and I hope that you have enjoyed all of these new rappers, Brazilian hip hop music and the new Brazilian rhythms that I have introduced to you here in my blog.
I really appreciate the opportunity I was given to write this blog, and to learn about this captivating culture.
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