DJ Post-Women Rappers and Sexual Politics

Interpretive Community
Jaqueline Bobo defines the concept of interpretive community as a movement that is made up of the black female cultural procedures, critics and scholars, and cultural consumers. Women in Hip Hop have created spaces in which they are able to deliver powerful messages from black female and black feminist perspectives. The classifications of women rappers are based on the constructions of an interpretive community based on the recorded performances and personal interviews. There are four distinct groups or categories that women rappers fall under in rap music performance. They are the “Queen Mother”, “Fly Girl”,  and “Sistas with Attitude”,

Queen Mother
Queen Latifah is one of the biggest icons in defining the queen mother. For starters she was the first independent female artist to commercially record under this title of “Queen”. This category is comprised of female rappers that view themselves as African centered icons. Women in this category “ adorn their bodies with royal or kente cloth strips, african headdresses, goddess braid styles, and ankh-stylized jewelry. their rhymes embrace black female empowerment and spirituality, making clear their self-identification as african, woman, warrior, priestess, and queen.” and thus can often be identified through their dress and intellectual abilities. The image is often one of maturity and seeming to be well grounded. Queen Latifah being the ideal example for this category portrays this mature and grounded stature, and in result (often with any strong headed woman) fans view her as a person to revere or at times, fear. Patricia Hill recognizes that some women in the African American community are viewed as “othermothers”. These community othermothers, “work on behalf of the black community by expressing ethics of caring and personal accountability which embrace  conceptions of transformative and mutuality”. In other words the community othermothers are identified as power figures through furthering the community's well being. Queen Latifah’s othermother persona is greatly influential and reflected through her songs, “the evil that men do” and “ladies first”.

Fly Girl
To be “fly” is to be in chic clothing, working fashionable hairstyles and wearing expensive and flashy jewelry. This style sprouted from the blaxploitation films of the 1970’s era. The Boogie Boys describe a fly girl as a woman who wants to be known, all for her name, game, and ability. To do so “she sports a lot of gold, wears tight jeans...has voluptuous curves, but speaks her mind.”  Yo- Yo and Salt-N-Pepa are two examples of what it means to be a fly girl. Audre Lorde’s theory of erotic as power gives way to sculpting ones own persona and body esteem. Salt-n-Pepa describe themselves as, “ women who have worked hard to keep their bodies in shape: we’re proud to show them off.” Another aspect to the fly girl persona is independence, this was promoted by TLC and their espousal of being fly and sexually independent as well as expressing some degree of sexual responsibility. An emphasis later made by fly girls was being sure they were recognized for their rapping skills as well. A current day embodiment of the fly girl would be Nicki Minaj.


Sista with Attitude
“Tude” can be defined as an aggressive, arrogant, defiant or negative disposition. Da Brat and Roxanne Shante, Bytches with problems (BWP) are two examples of this category that are grouped in accordance to their “tude”. Sisters with attitude comprises female MC’s who value attitude as a means of empowerment and present themselves accordingly. Many of these sistas have, “reclaimed the word bitch” making it out to be a more positive term when thrown around in the right manner. The word bitch has always been problematic depending on who uses the term, how it is employed, and to whom one referring to. In addition to reclaiming the term bitch, the bad girl persona was adopted to sistas with attitude. Where sistas brag about their drunken night of partying or smoking with their men. It parallels the “badman” often talked about in the toast. This theme is seducing, repressing, and sexually emasculating to male characters. Artists classified under this category are not considered to have creative skills, but are viewed to misuse sex and feminism and devaluate black men. Although a rugged category, sistas with attitude have an acquired respect by their peers through their “mastery of figurative language and rhyme.”



These categories are interestingly all very much ways of typifying women, and insinuate that they cannot intersect with one another. When black women challenge the patriarchal mindsets of Hip-Hop culture, they are generally shrugged off or treated as "angry black women". Yet another category black women are expected to fit into, these women are treated as if their anger is unreasonable and irrational, while ignoring the intersectional realities of them facing both racism and misogyny. In the hip-hop culture where men can openly express themselves in a variety of ways, women’s mode of expression is incredibly limited by the culture itself.