I Can’t Let You Disrespect Me I’m A Queen, and All My Real Boss Chicks Know What I Mean “Every time I hear a brother call a girl a bitch or a hoe, trying to make a sister feel low, You know all of that gots to go.” -Queen Latifah, U.N.I.T.Y. Lyrics. Every time I turn on the radio in my car, I cannot hear a song without rappers calling a female out of their name and that has been an issue for quite some time now. My opening statement was a verse from actress/rapper Queen Latifah’s hit song U.N.I.T.Y. The song was released in 1994 as a form of taking a stand against the derogatory terms used in hip-hop to discuss women. Queen Latifah, as well as many other female rappers, semi-dominated the hip-hop nation for several years when women empowerment and feminism were brought to the table. Since the beginning of the rap era, men dominated the genre, but during the end of the 20th century women came on …show more content…
When the era of rap began, many artists produced music about social and economic catastrophes and rap was pretty much music for self-expression and creativity. Today’s hip-hop is all about materialistic things, drugs, crime, and the exploitation of women. The second and third criteria for women in hip-hop coincide with each other because I am differentiating female rappers of the past and female rappers of today. For many years female rappers felt that it was only right to step up to the plate and speak their peace within the hip-hop community. Unfortunately, with positive aspects came the negative when female artists were degrading us women more than the men. The openly discussion of sexuality was taken to a whole new level as female rappers brought vulgarity and misleading, raunchy acts to the stage. The genre hip-hip as a whole is extremely influential, but it seems like when the music became more commercial, females’ voices lost their