Hip-hop has no gender. By nature free, all-encompassing and open, he cannot have that. This is a culture that originated fifty years ago, born of an act of love: a party to share moments together at 1520 Sadwick Avenue, West Bronx. In these weeks of celebration, its history is traced and its main characters are remembered, as well as the most modern names and new faces of rap are raised. There are very few women, or even not at all, in the ratings or articles. Beyond rankings, contests, and the idea of picking a winner, here are five women, all different from each other, who rap and rock. And this is what we just love to recommend, because they deserve to be known and listened to.
Missy Elliott
An innovation brought by this hip-hop queen, now 52 years old with a career spanning over twenty years. “For my first album (1997’s Supa Dupa Fly), I didn’t listen to the radio. I didn’t watch the video. I didn’t do any of that and didn’t realize how much it helped me at the time,” she mused in a 2021 talking to Doja Cat – it helped me because Timbaland and I (his co-writer and producer) did not imitate anyone. From the beginning, Elliott used samples in the groundbreaking Way, rapped smartly, always spoke on the side of women writing articles about self-worth and emancipation, and never flirted with pop music as well as making radio hits.
Little Simz
He is one of the new stars of modern rap. Simbiatu Ajikawo, which is his real name, was born in Islington, London on February 23, 1994 to a Nigerian family. At the age of seven, she discovers Missy Elliott and is fascinated by the choreography of her music videos. Later, under the influence of artists such as Lauryn Hill, 2Pac, Nas and Jay-Z, she began to write her first rhymes. After releasing several EPs, she released her first album “EDGE” in 2014, followed by several projects, including the dedication project “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert”, released in 2021. During her musical career, she has performed with such famous artists as Lauryn Hill and Gorillaz Kendrick Lamar called her “one of the best rappers of our time.”
Lauryn Hill
An elusive icon, a renaissance woman with the ability to seamlessly transition from mind-blowing spicy bars to sweet R&B. He was a member of the hip hop group The Fugees, then released his debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998, which he produced, wrote and arranged in its entirety. The album hit the world charts, selling over eighteen million copies. A timeless gem thanks to dedicated lyrics as well as already known vocal and rap skills. But fame took its toll on her well-being and she deliberately retreated to the top of her career. Hill has actually recorded several single tracks since then, but there has been no follow-up album so far.
Nicki Minaj
This is a painting by Picasso: she changes musical form and lives in periods. It mixes sweet elements with sex, it is exaggerated, crazy, colorful, destructive in its flow. Everything she does requires great skill and flexibility, as well as incredible imagination: she is one of the strongest rappers of all time, in rap in general not only in the female world, her incredible verses in collaboration with Kanye West (along with Jay -Z, Rick Ross and Bon Iver) in “Monster” was voted the best rap verse of 2010 and completely silenced the naysayers of the time. She, too, has always had a knack for playing and mixing pop music, becoming a pompous icon. “Once someone succeeds at something, everyone picks up on the idea. There is a price to pay: if you imitate, you become faceless,” he said in 2021.
070 shakes
Born in 1997, he began his musical career at the end of 2015, recording his first songs. In 2016, she started gaining popularity on SoundCloud until she signed with Kanye West’s label GOOD Music, who immediately believed in her. He has collaborated with Pusha T, narrated Kanye West’s album “Ye”, and in 2019 collaborated with DJ Khaled. He released two albums: in 2020 Modus Vivendi and in 2022 You Can’t Kill Me. Never banal, sharp, sometimes with a fatal attitude, he has an intimate way of singing and rapping, plays a lot of melodies and changes in timbre, has a taste for sonic experiments, as also evidenced by the work done with Madonna and Sikik on the remix. “Frozen”.