Spotlighting a unique moment in music history, one where female Hip Hop artists of color are making their biggest-ever impact on the charts and on culture. Featuring Saweetie, aka Icy, Megan Thee Stallion, aka Stalli and Carbi B, aka Bacardi.

NOTE: This program contains language and subject matter some may find objectionable.

We are in the middle of a historic moment in music currently here in the U.S., whether you realize it or not. In no previous time have so many female Hip Hop artists been so successful on the charts, especially female Hip Hop artists of color. In the past, Hip Hop has been an incredibly male-dominated music genre, with few exceptions.

Much of the change has been due to the overall shift in the charts due to the music consuming public wanting more rhythmic dance music, of which women hold the rare crown for a style.

They have also, by and large, been far more expressive than ever in the language they use in these tracks, actually taking the sexual boasting prowess of men and turning it on its head, demanding, in song, what they want first. All of them can also throw more shade than a solar eclipse.

Cover of the Icy EP featuring Saweetie on the cover. Courtesy of Warner Music, 2019.

Judging solely by the messages in this new crop of rappers, women of color are also done with accepting whatever life throws at them, again being forthright in what they want to do with their lives first, including getting paid for the hard work they do, and not wanting to surround themselves with others that do not have the same goals, i.e. “basic hoes”, a common refrain. They are also, much like Lizzo, incredibly body positive, and either intentionally or unintentionally funny through just being honest.

The rise of these women also illustrates a common misconception about the music business that has plagued it for far too long: all of our featured artists today, and many other current female rappers as well, started out on independent labels or as artists on social media, which gives the term “indie music” a much needed revision about what that really means. These women prove it isn’t all hipsters and slow, mopey, coffee house music.

They didn’t invent this system, but they have had to learn, often through enormous struggle, how to navigate it and attempt to survive in it.

Cover of the WAP single, 2020. (l-r) Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B.. WAP was one of the biggest worldwide hits of last year. Courtesy of Atlantic Records.

Of course there has been controversy from center-and-right leaning groups, primarily made up of white men, which underscores exactly why these messages are so important at the moment: you might not find them empowering, but this isn’t your voice. It’s theirs, and haters should learn to step back and let these women, and others also making the new scene exciting, the opportunity to speak their truth to power.

And, in spite of what conservative commentator Ben Shapiro believes, this is what empowerment looks like to these women, and though literally no one has ever asked him to mansplain his opinion on feminism to anyone, he was happy to give it and got righteously trolled for it. His comments, and others like them, are really less about that subject and more of what has been holding female rappers back for years: conservatives wish to control what women of color say and do, especially when it comes to sex.

Hard to believe Shapiro went to Harvard Law. Or maybe not.

First Part: Saweetie

Our first artist and I actually share two things in common: we are both originally from Cali...