6/13/2023 0 Comments Hip hop wars download![]() ![]() ” 2 Hill’s nod to African history-her allegiance to the cultural strength and regal dignity of African women such as Cleopatra and Sister Betty Shabazz-her reference to “dirty mattresses” and “the ghetto” encapsulates in rhythmic cadence the complex and creative journey of “spitting rhymes” in unladylike spaces. Such conversations were more cordial in the 1980s and 1990s when the landscape of hip hop included the voices of female MCs and deejays who, in the words of the Queen and Monie Love, “ the ones to give birth/To the new generation of prophets because it’s Ladies First.” 1 These affirmations of black femininity, self-respect, and self-love were echoed by rap artists such as MC Lyte, Lauryn Hill, neo-soul psalmists Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, among others, who proclaim, as Hill does in “Everything is Everything”-“From the beginning/My practice extending across the atlas/ I begat this/flippin’ in the ghetto on a dirty mattress/You can’t match this rapper/actress/More powerful than two Cleopatras/MCs ain’t ready to take it to the Serengeti/My rhymes is heavy like the mind of Sister Betty. H ip hop has long been a lightning rod for discussions of black womanhood and sexuality. ![]()
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