Woman Hold Up More Than Half the Sky within Hip Hop by Davey D There’s definitely a revolution of sorts going on as Hip Hop purges itself from the negativity and the all too often, over the top minstrel-like stereotypes that have plagued it for the past few years. Leading the charge are women. Last week during a Hip Hop panel discussion at UCLA in Los Angeles, the panel which included everyone from West Coast pioneers like Alonzo of the World Class Wrecking Crew and Arabian Prince of NWA on down to new comers like Brother Los of Company of Prophets to academics like Professor Sam Aleen to B-girls like Zulu Queen LA Nivens, the question was asked about women in Hip Hop. Everyone on the panel noted that what will save Hip Hop if it needs to be saved, are strong women who are committed to making sure their voices are heard and that respect is given. Brother Los noted that he had noticed that more and more women have been stepping up and taking charge in the reshaping of Hip Hop. Alonzo said that female energy would be a welcome change and that tyhere was too much male testaterone. Everyone else chimed in with similar sentiments with the underlying theme being change is needed and women can make it happen in a big way. These words ring true as you look around the country and see all sorts of women making moves. In the words of the late great freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hammer sistas have just grown tired of being tired with putting up with the bullshit the industry is offering and as a result they are making moves. It could be in the form of woman like Pittsburgh native Kellee Maize releasing her incredible album ‘Age of Feminine’ which has an anthem type song called Marchin’ (for the Revolution)featuring fellow Pittsburgh, PA spitter Emprez or Portland’s Queen Nasimwho puts the fun and old school back into Hip Hop with her new album FRESH. In the Bay Area we have women like Jennifer Johns blowing up the spot while down in LA women like Medusa and B-Girl Asia One still reign supreme. In New York we have emcees like Rha Goddess and J-Love who just released a book focusing on women empowerment called ‘We Got Issues’. (www.wegotissues.org) We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface as we can also focus on all the women who have been in the forefront of the media justice/ reform movements, Shout out to women like Rosa Clemente, April Silver, Christie Z Pabon and J-Love to name a few in the REACH Coalition in NY that took on Hot 97, or women like Lisa Fager of Industryears.com or women promoters and B-girls like DJ Earth One and DJ Soyo who hold it down in Washington DC. In a recent conversation with DJ Soyo, she noted that she was recently named a commissioner on the Sojouner Truth Project where they are organizing and fighting to have the statue of this pioneering woman of the Sufferage and Abolitionist movements returned to the Capitol. Years ago her statue was removed from the halls of the Capitol because she was Black and offended white folks running things at the time. For more info contact soyodj@aol.com This is in addition to the pair constantly fighting to create more space and find homes for conscious Hip Hop. Of course we gotta show love to the local homegirls like spoken word artist Malkia Cyril and Jen Serramento over at Youth Media Council in Oakland which took on Clear Channel and continue to fight for Media Justice. I could go on and on dropping names, but there’s just way too many women making great moves and its starting to have impact. What makes this current wave of energy so inspiring is that many of these women are doing more then just rapping. They are organizing and attaching their work and collective efforts to community groups. That includes women doing their own artist show cases, starting their own production and management companies, setting up their own record labels and as is the case in Boston with Girls Radio or in Seattle with producer B-Girl Chillz ‘B-Girl Radio’ setting up their own online radio stations. They personify the dead prez adage ‘It’s Bigger than Hip Hop’. By connecting to community they ensure that there will be a fundamental shift in the way things are done. Last week in Seattle, during the 206 Zulu Anniversary an all women’s Hip Hop panel with local artists and activists was held. The panel included radio hosts E Mandisa and Sacha Star, Emcee and Spoken word artists like Laura ‘Piece’ Kelly and Onion and Ms Kitty Wu of Cool Out TV. It was moderated by Professor Mako Fitts.All these women in addition to being practioners of Hip Hop are well heeled organizers. Instead of entertaining the usual banter about men in Hip Hop calling women bitches, these sisters who are doing big things up north, focused on the topics like the importance of creating spaces for women to nurture and heal, holding down multiple roles, overcoming obstacles and most important motherhood within Hip Hop. The discussion was enlightening and is included at the end of this article. This weekend (Friday Night march 2) Seattle will host its third all female Hip Hop showcase at University of Washing in the Basement Hub. The last one I went to was superpacked with woman after woman getting up on stage and simply killing it. This week many of the women who rocked the first two return to the fold, including Canarysing, Julie C, GiGi, Pinay Sa Seattle and Melissa Noel Green to name a few. If that’s not enough Seattle follows up with another women’s showcase the next night with poet Ursula Rucker at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center. Big shout out to sisters like Heidi Jackson for producing this event. Meanwhile closer to home in the Bay Area, the sisterhood vibe is alive and well with the upcoming release of the Queendom Compilation album. Peep the article below by Eric Arnold. Local activist and TV talk show host Maleena Lawrence who is pictured on the Women Hold Up More Than Half the Sky flier has just launched a new Hip Hop series on Comcast Channel 26 called Ladies First which spotlights women in Hip Hop. Lawrence said she had grown frustrated with asking the question ‘where are my sisters at?’. As a result she decided to flip her popular weekly talk show and give it new direction to create space for Women Hip Hop artists up and down the west coast. If anyone is interested in getting down get at her by dropping her an email at themlshow@gmail.com or hit up her myspace.com/maleena8 Like I said I could go on and on talking about all the people doing things. The bottom line is this. Like it or not change is in the wind with women leading the charge. This is a good thing for Hip Hop and society in general. Enjoy the panel discussion included below… http://odeo.com/audio/9897643/view Davey D Compilation spotlights women rocking hip-hop mikes, battling ‘vixen’ stereotypes by Eric K. Arnold, Special to The Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/15/DDGLRO46AU1.DTL&type=printable When Pam the Funkstress started out as a member of East Oakland’s all-female hip-hop group 3 Deep in the early ‘90s, she was one of the only woman DJs in the local scene. Today, that’s not the case—she points to numerous women who spin regularly in Bay Area clubs, such as Backside, Neta and Daniela, to name a few. In the past couple of years, all-female DJ nights have become much more common locally, but the phenomenon isn’t limited to the Bay Area. “I didn’t realize how many women DJs were really, really out there until I hit MySpace,” Pam confides with a chuckle. Typically, women in hip-hop have been portrayed as video vixens (i.e. Karrine “Superhead” Stephens), oversexed divas (think Lil’ Kim and Trina), or asexual tomboys (a la Lady Sovereign). Occasionally, they get to be girlfriends of a thugged-out Big Willie type, but only if they’re “bootylicious” (like Beyoncé). However, those limited stereotypes are but a small representation of the role women have actually played in the culture. This week, S.F.-based independent label Outta Nowhere Entertainment hopes to alter the public perception of women in hip-hop with the release of “Queendom, Vol. 1,” the first in a projected series spotlighting female emcees and DJs from across the country and the world. This long-overdue tribute to women in rap is the brainchild of S.F. rapper and entrepreneur Oposit, who became inspired after throwing a series of successful female-themed showcases with local hip-hop collective Sisterz of the Underground between 2002 and 2005. After seeing the diverse array of female talent - not just rappers, but b-girls, graffiti writers and DJs - at these events, he remembers thinking, “Yo, this is crazy. We got a movement!” Yet, while researching the idea of an all-female rap album, he discovered there weren’t many on the market. In fact, he was aware of only one such collection: Rhino’s three-volume 1998 set, “Fat Beats and Bra-straps.” “To me, this was a void in the marketplace,” he says. Oposit knew of the wealth of female talent in the Bay Area’s underground scene, yet, “I wasn’t really seeing that as far as how women (rappers) were being portrayed in the mainstream.” He spent six months doing market research, and he found that the “Queendom” concept had an even larger appeal than he initially thought. “People who said, ‘I want to like rap but I can’t because of its attitudes toward women’ were all for it. ... I got a 90 percent positive response across the board.” Oposit reached out to female rappers, both known and unknown, to license tracks for the album. “All the artists were feeling (it),” he says. Yet because the album was on a small indie label, he adds, “I don’t think anybody really knew what to expect.” “Queendom’s” diverse lineup includes East Coast veterans MC Lyte, Bahamadia, Ladybug Mecca and Apani B. Fly, as well as NYC turntablist Kuttin’ Kandy, L.A.’s Medusa, Sacramento’s Tenashus, Portland’s Siren’s Echo, and Australia’s Macromantics. Thankfully, “Queendom” doesn’t overlook the Bay Area’s feminine hip-hop royalty: Pioneering women such as the Conscious Daughters, spoken word/hip-hop theater maven Aya De Leon and Pam the Funkstress are along for the ride as well. “As a female, I’m 120 percent behind this compilation,” Pam says, adding, “It’s inspiring to see a woman do anything a man can do.” During a recent interview with De Leon and the Conscious Daughters in Oakland, the three discussed what it means to be a woman in hip-hop, the prevalence of sexism and misogyny in the culture and how that relates to society as a whole. According to De Leon, “There have always been a lot of fabulous and really strong women artists in every field,” including hip-hop. However, she says, “a lot of times, hip-hop gets blamed for the problems of the larger society. And I think, when it comes to women, this is certainly no exception.” As she notes, “Sex sells in a society that sells sex.” And while hip-hop videos have contributed to the sexual objectification of women, “The Lil’ Kims and the Trinas aren’t the gatekeepers. They’re not the decision-makers.” Even more problematic, De Leon says, is the fact that “you have porn directors directing (music) videos … one of the things about super-sexualized imagery is the more you have, the more numb people are to how sexualized it is, how over the edge.” To CMG of the Conscious Daughters, sexual imagery and objectification “comes with the territory right now of what’s mainstream. Showing what you have. You gotta have money and cars, and along with that comes a lot of T&A.” Her partner in rhyme, Special One, says, “It’s come to a level with the exploitation of women where it’s like, what more can you do? Take off your bikini?” Even so, Special One - who notes that the Conscious Daughters’ first two albums, 1994’s “Ear to the Street” and 1996’s “Gamers,” sold more than 700,000 units combined - believes that “any female MC that’s good will be heard. I don’t think you gotta be so super-sexy with a long weave and be the baddest bitch.” Speaking of the b-word, De Leon and the Conscious Daughters have somewhat differing ideas regarding the controversial term. De Leon says she makes a point not to use it in her personal conversations, although she relates that in her one-woman hip-hop theater show “Thieves in the Temple,” one of her characters “uses it intermittently as a term of empowerment for herself, or as a way of attacking other women.” “I think (these words) become signifiers of being urban or being down or being edgy, when that may or may not be people’s reality,” she says. “Overall, I think it reflects the casual way that sexism is in all fibers of our culture, certainly not just in hip-hop or the language people use in hip-hop.” For the Daughters, who “grew up in Oakland listening to Too ,” “bitch” is “just a word,” which could be either empowering or degrading, depending on the context. “A man could be a bitch,” Special One says. “Don’t limit that word to just a woman.” Part of the problem with hip-hop’s attitudes toward women is the genre’s inherent gender imbalance. As De Leon relates, “A lot of times, there’s the compilation with just one woman.” Often, she’ll do a show and discover “I’ll be the one woman on the bill.” This perceived separation, she says, can lead to a sense of tokenism. “It’s hard being the only woman. You feel like you have to speak for all women everywhere. ... You’ve gotta be really tight, because you’re the only one representing for your gender that whole night.” Asked why there haven’t been more all-women rap compilations, Special One replies, “I’m sure there are a whole lotta women trying,” adding, “I know a lot of young female MCs and a lot of female producers that are making beats.” In addition to the “Queendom” project, the Daughters have a new album, entitled “The Nutcracker Suite,” scheduled for summer 2007 on local indie label Guerilla Funk Recordings. The album’s title, which the Conscious Daughters say was given to them by their producer, Paris, is intended as a not-so-gentle rebuke of rap’s patriarchy. “It’s a male-dominated industry,” Special One explains. Because of “the tits-and-ass thing, with the girls being exploited all the time, we’re going for your balls.” Ouch, indeed. But if women ran hip-hop - as De Leon’s spoken word track on “Queendom” imagines - would that also mean the end of sexism and misogyny in the genre? Not necessarily, all three admit. “It would depend on who the women were and what their agenda was,” De Leon says. “You know how male artists have their crews? There’d be more catfights,” Special One says with a laugh. “But at the same time, I think it’d be more productive, more of substance.” According to CMG, “the topics would change. We would talk about other things than sex.” For instance, “domestic violence, adultery, teenage pregnancy, runaways,” Special One says, finishing the thought. She points out that on “The Nutcracker Suite,” the Conscious Daughters address some of those thorny issues. On prior albums, the duo focused their efforts on being equally as hardcore as their male counterparts; this time, they also express a more mature perspective. “We’ve been here for 10 years. We’ve realized that we have grown,” Special One says. “Younger girls are looking up to us, so we don’t wanna say, ‘Oh, we ridin’ and getting high all the time.’ That’s not what we’re about. We wanna let ‘em know it’s more than sexism in hip-hop and in life, period.” These women may be among the most visible females in the Bay Area hip-hop scene, but they’re far from the only ones. Although Pam the Funkstress feels there’s still a long way to go - in particular, she cites the lack of women DJs on commercial radio as a major obstacle - she’s aware of the influence female hip-hoppers can have on young women. She’s spun for girls aged 14-18 at the Huckleberry Youth Programs who were very inspired by “seeing a woman who can hang with the best of ‘em.” To De Leon, the very notion of women in hip-hop is an empowering one. “There’s something about hip-hop, it forces you to step up and face all your fears and insecurities. There’s nothing but you and the beats and your words,” she says. “When I was coming up, hip-hop was something new. Nowadays, it’s everywhere.” For that reason, she says, “We need to keep putting out those positive images and those strong voices.” Echoing that sentiment, Special One adds, “we have to be recognized other than just standing next to the rapper guy. We have something to say too.” Less