The search for the elusive female Eminem

So there are quite a few videos out there now that feature white girls rapping and trying to get some type of attention amongst the sea of nonsense and make it big. This is the Eminem effect. Anyone who knows anything understands that generally, an artist who becomes large on the scene in hip-hop has to have a large portion of their fanbase that is non-black, and generally white. The reason Eminem blew up was because white people (especially males in the 15-24 demographic at the time) could relate to him and wasn't too corny or a gimmick. While his initial single was weird and not typical for urban radio, he managed to gain the respect of urban or black youth culture which made him acceptable to the larger white audience.


It's only natural then, that the last untapped huge market for explosiveness is the white female rapper. When you consider that the female market is one of the most underserved in hip-hop in general, it seems like a no-brainer. However, finding a white female rapper is probably going to be the hardest thing to do. When you look at the black female rappers there has only been one breakout success since the late 90's and that's Nicki Minaj. It took damn near 11 or 12 years to replace Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown and that's just ridiculous. Eve was able to get some prominence,as did Trina, but neither of them has made the large scale impact across hip-hop. So there is no need to even address the existence of Rasheeda, Diamond, and the like.


The thing every rapper needs is credibility with the black audience as being an authentic purveyor of that person's lifestyle, and acceptance from their target audience. One of the problems that i have seen from these white females is that they don't have any story that is relatable to other white females...or at least the ones who are actually going to spend money on a record or song download. See, the 'hood white girls' fit into a smaller niche and the suburban white girls aren't really into that. Black females don't buy female rap records and also feel threatened by the white woman in the hood phenomenon. Then there are the attempts to make pseudo-hip-hop yet market it to the urban crowd like this:




One main issue is one of identity. Where do they fit in? A white girl may like rap and be able to rap but how many of the people in her circle are fans of rap and how many just like whatever is popular? A big thing in promotion is getting a solid core following and there is just too much competitiveness between females for this to truly work out, especially in the white community where a lot of emotions are difficult to express. I know you're thinking that's bullshit but it's true over the broader range of demographics. White women are traditionally less independent than black women and also take the criticism in the work arena harder. They are also more pressured to enter traditional relationships and do the traditional thing in work. Point blank there are a lot of factors that come into play before you even start to talk about the music itself.



Now that's Snow the product with a decent crossover single (self described as chicano she looks just like Danica Patrick to me) and it's the type of song that will be needed for a white female rapper to make it. At the end it's not bad but the question is does it hit the sweet spot of commercial viability and relatability (i know that's not a word but it should be) to catapault it. Honestly, success in hip-hop is like catching lightening in a bottle at times because there are plenty of reasons why an artist might or might not make that leap to respectability. Right now, i would have to say that the most daunting task would be to establish a white female rapper, or at least hip-hop styled artist. The last two who could be considered successful in urban music would be Mariah Carey, and Teena Marie who was actually Portugese. What do you think about the viability of a white female hip-hop artist.