Female rappers still second best

Rap and hip-hop remain a boys’ club, often rewarding male artists for even the most lukewarm of rhymes.

No matter how excellent, any woman in the game must be content with never playing in the boys’ club and only holding the “best female rapper” title, rather than “best rapper”.

In March this year, rapper AKA tweeted: “If a female rapper is going to blow up this year, they’re going to have to be as good, if not better, than a really good male rapper ... What made Lil’ Kim or Foxy [Brown] or Nicki [Minaj] dope is that they could hang with the BEST.

“To be a prolific female rapper in this country, you are going to need ‘the look’ AND ‘the bars’ ... you cannot possibly tell me there is not a female rapper out there with the total package! We’re waiting for you, the game needs you.”

AKA’s tweets capture the sentiment that women who rap need to be exceptional to be considered competent enough to compete with male rappers. Not only must they be better than a “really good” male rapper, they must also look like an airbrushed porn star to be taken seriously. And even then, they might not be considered the best.

Despite Nicki Minaj being one of the most consistently excellent rappers of the past decade, she’s still considered only good against “the best” male rappers, many of whom haven’t had an exceptional verse in years (I am looking at you Jay Z and Nas, who are able to hold on to “best rapper” titles from verses from a decade ago).

She’s still just “the best female rapper” and must constantly assert her worth to be counted among the best.

Until female rappers take their rightful place alongside male rappers, and are not treated like a second-division league, it’s still a man’s game.

Do you think Nicki Minaj is as good as her male-rapper counterparts?

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