A few lessons from Black women’s rap

by Tapiwa Nyirenda

In an age where authenticity is key to successfully engaging with increasingly diverse and intersectional audiences, it is important for those working in comms to do the work to fully understand the cultural tenets they may be utilising to connect with marginalised or under-represented audiences.

With hip hop being a global expression for a global audience, it is not uncommon to find brands embarking on partnerships with artists. Collaborating with culturally recognisable figures has great potential to lend brands credibility and status, which can aid in enhancing their appeal among certain audiences.

However, balancing the relationship between borrowed authenticity and audience engagement can be difficult.

So here are a few things you might not already know about Black female rap specifically and its cultural function for (Black) women audiences more broadly. Some of this can also be viewed as a lens for engaging with the specificities of any culture. 

As part of my postgraduate degree, I undertook a critical discourse analysis of 51 songs released by Black women rappers between 2017 and 2022. I set out with a singular aim of discerning how women empowerment was constructed within these narratives.

The impetus behind my research was a desire to better understand the discourses that had come to inform my own conceptualisation of what it meant to be empowered as a Black woman. I sought to reconcile the disconnect I was experiencing as a student of media and communications, who was being taught that the songs that bolstered my sense of self were inextricably anti-feminist.  

Both within and outside of academia there is a broad consensus that rap music and feminism are mutually exclusive. Rap in general conjures images of barely dressed women, twerking, strip clubs and other overtly sexual imagery. However, despite these ideas characterising the genre for some people, these are not characteristics specific to the genre. It’s important to note, that the sexual objectification of women is an enduring central logic within all realms of social and cultural life. So much so, that popular culture continues to be characterised by the exposure and commodification of female sexuality. This is not a rap issue (if an issue at all*). And while women in rap do work within dominant sexual and racial narratives, they also work against them.

For decades, rap and hip hop have been used as outlets to negotiate experiences of marginalisation, brutality and oppression. As a cultural form that emerged in underdeveloped, inner-city black and brown communities, rap is culturally resistive in nature, and as a result, has long-provided Black women with a media form through which to discursively construct sites of racialised and gendered resistance. These narratives are simultaneously liberating and constraining, both working within and against dominant sexual and racial narratives. 

It was important for me to forge a space that embraced messy, incomplete and contradictory findings, as the potential for harm harboured in some rap narratives did not negate their potential for empowerment. I am living proof of that - and so are the other Black women I knew who resonated with the initial insight that inspired my research.

Outlined below are three ways through which women empowerment was constructed:

Individualism

The embrace of unlikability

The co-option of traditionally masculine subjectivities

 Individualism

Rappers construct a gendered empowerment that is distinctly individualistic and centred around the women themselves. From my research, there is a consistently limited consideration for collective women empowerment and narratives overwhelmingly rejected notions of sisterhood with other women.

This manifests in the practice of rappers uplifting themselves through the direct subjugation of another imagined woman. Historically, women rappers have had to embody cultural markers of hegemonic masculinity to acquire professional and artistic credibility.  Arguably this is a persistent phenomenon, as many of the women in my sample utilised misogynistic slurs to degrade women they disliked, for their personalities or sexual behaviour.

There was a disconnect between rappers wanting to embrace their own confidence, sexuality and desirability and an internalised tendency to degrade and dehumanise other women in the same way men do.

For those interested in engaging with audiences through the music, it’s important to understand the contrast and how they inform women’s empowerment.

The embrace of unlikability

There was a recurring embrace of “unlikable” traits which is especially interesting given that Black women have long been subject to stereotypes that categorise them as angry or over-aggressive – an experience that has led many Black women to repress negative emotions or opinions for fear of stereotyping. Refreshingly, female rappers did little to police their expression, instead presenting themselves as confident and unapologetic.

Women are not often afforded space to be disagreeable without falling under fierce critique. Respectability politics and ideas of gentility are all proof of the expectation placed on women to be palatable. From a racial lens, white supremacy always demands ‘respectable negroes;’ and so, by utilising bold assertions of self-confidence and embracing their inner aggression, these women were able to construct a women empowerment that was not afraid to shock or disturb.

And while this adoption of a ‘mean-girl’ persona can lead to some uncomfortable narratives, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with women sometimes playing the bad guy. Especially when these narratives have the potential to vest women with the confidence to be their loudest and most secure selves. If internalised by young audiences, the results should reflect greater self-esteem and belief that Black women are beautiful, desirable and valuable.

The co-option of traditionally masculine subjectivities

Female rappers tended to adopt ‘historically masculine subjectivities’ around relationships with men. By adopting characteristics and behaviours “typically reserved for men”, artists were arguably able to flip traditional gender roles and depict a male-female dynamic based on female agency.

This was best illustrated by the repeated rejection of stereotypes that sensationalised women’s emotions. Historically, women have been seen as inherently more emotional than men, and specifically unable to separate feelings from sex. This has been in direct contrast to men who have historically been understood to be natural sexual beings, who are able to pursue women for sex and not typically seek deeper emotional connections.

However, within rap discographies, women turn this dynamic on its head by demonstrating a preference for casual over romantic relationships. Both within and beyond my sample, women’s rap is characterised by a pervasive disinterest in emotional relationships with men, with the majority of artists choosing to present themselves as only seeking (and using) men for personal gain.

By depicting themselves as sex-positive and unattached, women rappers are able to wield a unique power that has long been established as reserved for men. So, while these representations of male-female relations do not move beyond being adversarial, women rappers are able to assume the more dominant position, in setting the terms of the relationship.

This co-option enables them to construct a gendered empowerment that resists historic and restrictive conceptualisations of womanhood. Breaking pre-established gender binaries enables artists to reimagine sexual relationships for Black women, creating more opportunity for women’s agency and subjectivity.  The result is a gendered empowerment that is exhibited through the ability to uphold sexual boundaries, to communicate desires and needs without judgement and find ways to navigate gender relations with women’s interests at the forefront.

In conclusion, this is an empowerment centred around emancipation, agency, and control; it is rooted in notions of self-love and subsequently encouraged Black women to serve their own interests and prioritise their own wants and needs in all social realms. The rappers in my sample constructed empowerment in contradictory and imperfect ways, that often-mobilised operations of (internalised) misogyny and rejected notions of women’s collective well-being more broadly. However, this imperfectness was valuable in its own right, as it demonstrated the complexity that comes with navigating a male dominated genre as a historically marginalised subject.

Regardless of the narrative, this power to connect with people is something that can prove incredibly valuable to brands and businesses, if they are able to harness rappers’ stories and position their doing so in an authentic way. Creating authentic synergies hinges upon our ability to inform ourselves on the history and cultural context of the communities or cultural forms we attempt to engage. This is something that will only increase in relevance as our societies evolve and diversify.

*The fear and shame that has characterised pedagogical engagements with sexualisation feed into the difficulty many girls and young women experience when exploring their own sexual desires. There is a broader need for feminist work to challenge sexism and not sexualisation.