Black History Month: Women of Hip Hop Week 4

Sadly, this is the last week of Women of Hip Hop. We covered 29 days, but there is so much more to say. We didn’t even touch UK Grime and legends like Shystie. There was a group called BWP who were probably the first to explicitly rap about body autonomy. DJ Jazzy Joyce is a stalwart in the New York scene. Rah Diggah deserves a page for the work she’s done in the underground scene and beyond. There are simply not enough months in the year to cover all the women and femmes who shaped hip hop. I hope you learned something with the few aspects I highlighted, and I hope you venture out to learn even more.

DREW DIXON & A REMIX

Drew Dixon may not necessarily have her name in lights, but her insight and organization are the reason why we have one of the best Hip Hop songs about Black Love today. While working as an A&R executive at Def Jam, Dixon was given the menial task of typing up the credits to Method Man’s debut LP “Tical”. While listening to the album, an interlude caught her attention for the lyrics, “Shorty I’m there for you any time you need me / For real girl. It’s me in your world, believe me”. Dixon immediately called her boss Russell Simmons to implore that this be made a remix or B-Side. After days of hounding, he said fine, but she would have to organize the production, and she obliged. Dixon suggested it be a duet and that Mary J. Blige sing it, which meant calling Sean Combs, who had the idea to interpolate Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye’s “You’re All I Need to Get By”. The song would then have to be remixed by RZA who was not yet in the loop about this project. All of this coordination required Dixon to do literal footwork, running between studios and offices throughout New York City. It was important to Dixon, though, because in her own words, “I just wanted the record to get made because I believed women, Black women, women who are hip-hop heads, deserved to hear what Method Man had to say in a record. That was my mission. That’s what I did.” For all her work, Drew Dixon did not get any credit for production of “All I Need”. The song would win a Grammy in 1996.

BAHAMADIA (1966-)

More recognized in the underground scene, Antonia D. Green was a producer and DJ before she tried her hand at rhyming.  She became a protégé of Guru from Gang Starr in 1993 after he hear her flow on an underground EP called “Funky Vibes”. Her 1996 debut album “Kollage”, is the first to be co-produced and entirely written by a female rapper. The album is rich in jazzy beats that complement a more verbose and dexterous flow than her more bombastic commercial contemporaries. Though Kollage did not top mainstream charts, it is a critical darling and revered by underground hip hop heads worldwide. The Philadelphia native’s radio show “Bahamadia’s B-Sides” was the highest rated radio show in her hometown. Bahamadia has traveled the world and worked with the likes of the Roots, Lauryn Hill, Talib Kweli, and Erica Badu.

LAURYN HILL (1975-)

Lauryn Hill is is a multi-talented musician and one of the greatest rappers of all time. The New Jersy native started her career as an actor, starring in “As the World Turns” and Sister Act 2, the latter of which allowed her to show off her vocal talents. Additionally, she was a founding member of The Fugees. Their first album “Blunted on Reality” was an underground phenomenon, but their sophomore album “The Score” exploded their popularity, becoming a multiplatinum hit and earning them a Grammy in 1996. When The Fugees disbanded the following year, Hill got to work on “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill” (1998), The album went straight to number one on the Billboard 200 chart and sold 422,000 copies in its first week, setting a record for any female solo artist across any genre. “Miseducation…” went diamond in its first year. Hill brought all her talents to her work and wrote about love, self-respect, pregnancy and motherhood with unparalleled depth. She set another record at the 1999 Grammys, as “The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill” was nominated for ten awards and won five, after which Hill became the first female artist to earn that many nominations and awards in a single night.

GANGSTA BOO (1979-2023)

Lola Chantrelle Mitchell was one of the women who helped paved the way for the boom in female Southern rappers. The Memphis native started out as a founding member of Three 6 Mafia, purveyors of horrorcore and innovators of Memphis’s burdgeoning “get buck” style. Lyrically, Gangsta Boo was often the showstopper among her groupmates and their larger Hypnotized Minds crew. Gangsta Boo’s first solo album, “Enquiring Minds”, was released in 1998 and reached No.15 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and No.46 on the Billboard 200.  It’s main single “Where Dem Dollas At!?” was a runaway hit. Her second album “Both Worlds *69” (2001) was even more successful, peaking at #8 on the R&B/Hip Hop chart and 29 on Billboard 200. Financial and interpersonal disputes led Gangsta Boo to part ways with Three 6 Mafia and Hypnotized minds. She continued to work, releasing several independent EPs and mixtapes, and collaborating with talent like Latto, Lil Jon, Yelawolf, Eminem, and Outkast. Gangsta Boo’s presence would always be felt in any collaborative project she embarked on. A good example is how she dominated on a Run the Jewels track “Love Again (Akinyele Back)” in 2014. Sadly Gangsta Boo passed away on January 1, 2023 of an accidental narcotic overdose.

JEAN GRAE (1976-)

Tsidi Ibrahim is a New York icon. Under the moniker Jean Grae, the Cape Town, South Africa  native’s talent brought her collaborative work with the likes of Jay-Z, De La Soul, Talib Kweli, and Black Thought, but she still maintained domination of the underground and indie scene. When she was 19, Grae was part of the group Ground Zero. They cut a demo that earned them a highlight in “The Source’s” Unsigned Hype, the same section that featured a young Notorious BIG. She launched her solo career in 1998. Though she worked with producers from larger labels, Grae remained a strong advocate for artists staying independent, even once offering her vocal services on Craiglist for $800/16 bars. Grae was also an early adopter of the artist-friendly platform Bandcamp. Her album “Jeanius” (produced by 9^th Wonder) is considered a modern classic.

EVE (1978-)

Philadeplhia native Eve Jihan Jeffers excelled in poetry, singing, and even had a short-lived rap group by the age of 13. After high school, she moved to New York City and was eventually discovered by Dr. Dre; at the time, she used the name Eve of Destruction. Though Dre dropped her from his label, his parent label introduced her to Ruff Ryders, where her star exploded. She released her debut album “Let There Be Eve…Ruff Ryders’ First Lady”; it went No. 1 on Billboard immediately, the third female rapper to do so, after Lauryn Hill and Foxy Brown. The album went double platinum, selling 2 million copies. She was only 20 years old. Her subsequent albums enjoyed similar success, going platinum and gold respectively, and establishing her as an international star. From there, she branched out into acting, working on everything from scripted television to blockbuster movies with Vin Diesel and Ice Cube.

YOUNG MA (1992-)

Katorah Kasanova Marrero is a relatively young rapper but is still making historical moves. Her first single “Ooouuu” broke the Billboard top 20 and went quintuple platinum, and it has already been sampled and remixed by Remy Ma, French Montana, Nicki Minaj, Jadakiss, and ASAP Ferg. The video for the single was a viral hit with over 400 million views. During the 2016 BET Hip Hop Awards, Young MA delivered a freestyle that XXL Magazine described as “show stopping” and “one of the best freestyles of the night”. Talent aside, Young MA is one of the first openly gay rappers to gain such meteoric popularity. In a business that had its issues with misogyny and homophobia, a rapper to come out publicly was always risky. Even at the BET Awards, Young MA noted that part of her segment was suspiciously cut. She believes that coming out was an important part of her development as an artist, stating, “I held in being sexually attracted to women for so long that once I got that out of me, the music became easy.” There are other queer rappers in the public eye now, partially thanks to Young MA’s openness.

dream hampton (1972-)

dream Hampton is a filmmaker, producer, and writer. She is a prolific hip hop journalist, one of the genre’s few women journalists. hampton has been chronicling the evolution of Hip Hop since the early 1990s. Her love for the genre also means that she does not shyw away from or gloss over the stories and expose its faults. She was recently called “hip hop’s greatest critic”, but also determined to fix its problems. hampton’s writing career spans the pages of “Essence”, “Vibe”, “The Source”, and “Spin” among others. She also co-wrote “Decoded”, Jay-Z’s memoir. Beyond her music journalism, hampton also produced over a dozen documentaries and films, including the series “Surviving R. Kelly”, the Peabody Award winning series that pushed Kelly’s “open secret” into the light and forced people to take it seriously. Were it not for hampton, R. Kelly might still be free to abuse more young people.