Check this out over at Madconceptz...
A fellow blogger over at Madconceptz made an interesting post about Nicki Minaj called Is Nicki Minaj coming at the end of Female MC prominence in hip hop? Now I have to say I was thinking of doing an article similar to this and I still might, but this one is definately worth reading. Here is an excerpt:
Breaking it down in 5 year periods (80-85,85-90,90-95-95-00 etc) you can actually chart the growth and progression of female rappers in the music. Like Bonnie with Clyde, female rappers have been on the scene since the beginning with Lady B being the first solo female rapper to record a studio record in 1979. Even then she was not alone as there was The Funky Four + One More, the one more being Sha Rock. Funky Four was the first rap group to feature a female MC. But women really came into mainstream hit charting prominence by the mid 80s. With Roxanne Shante, Salt N Pepa and L' Trimm. By the late 80s those numbers grew with new performers like Monie Love, J.J.Fad and Queen Latifah being the most prominent but by no means the only ones of that time. The 90s saw the biggest explosion of female rappers in Hip-Hop ranging from Nikki D and Yo-Yo in the early 90s to Lauren Hill and Lil Kim in the mid 90s to Eve and Rah Digga in the late 90s. Again these ladies weren't the only ones shining throughout those years. There wasn't a time in that decade where no less than four or five women were charting hits in both of the 5 year periods (90-95, 95-00). But its after the turn of the century where we began to see a sharp decline. As I said earlier, every so often in a five year period or so there's been an introduction of new female rappers that in essence, take the reigns from the previous class and advances the music further. And usually that new class comes in clusters or groups. You can look at any five year period in Hip-hop and see at least 3 or 4 new faces (or groups) emerging.
But after 2000, there seemed to be less and less new female faces. Most of the mainstream hit makers of the early and mid 2000s were from veteran rappers of the previous decade like Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Trina and Rah Digga. The few new faces that you did see didn't last long like Remy Ma, Jean Grae, Khia or Jackie O. And in the late 2000s particularly in the last year, two years the only prominent female name that's being heard in mainstream rap today is..Nicki Minaj. That's it.
What happened?
But after 2000, there seemed to be less and less new female faces. Most of the mainstream hit makers of the early and mid 2000s were from veteran rappers of the previous decade like Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Trina and Rah Digga. The few new faces that you did see didn't last long like Remy Ma, Jean Grae, Khia or Jackie O. And in the late 2000s particularly in the last year, two years the only prominent female name that's being heard in mainstream rap today is..Nicki Minaj. That's it.
What happened?
Make sure you head over to his site and check out the post.
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