Rap might feel like a genre that is mostly meant for men; a large percentage of rap lyrics are full of violence, sex, and masculinity, with no space for feminity. Of course, this is a misconception caused by the influence of the music industry, which marginalizes the work of women. Women, even with their tougher starting position full of prejudice, manage to produce rap from its complete beginnings, and there are a countless number of projects released by women every year. One of the pioneers is MC Lyte and her album Lyte As A Rock (1988), or Lauryn Hill, who is a member of the Fugees and back in 1998 released her only solo project called The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, an album that took over the rest of the nineties. As our first Rap Tale by a female rapper, we chose Rapsody’s Eva.
Eve
Marlanna Evans, aka Rapsody, was born on January 21, 1983, in Snow Hill, North Carolina. During her university years, Marlanna joined the hip hop group H2O, later known as Kooley High. While being a member of a group, she met producer 9th Wonder in 2004, who was amazed by her talent. In 2007, she made her studio debut on the producer’s second album, The Dream Merchant Vol. 2. She signed her first contract with It’s A Wonderful World Music Group one year later, a move that started her solo career properly. Let’s fast forward a few years to 2012, when Rapsody released her solo debut album called The Idea of Beautiful. Five years later, we got Laila’s Wisdom, and then finally, in 2019, we got her third album, Eve.
The whole project has a completely unique concept that tries to lift up the works of other black female rappers that influenced her life and work. Every track is named after one of them. In the interview for The Oxford, the rapper said: “Throughout my career, I’ve always talked about black women — not just female rappers — and how much they’ve inspired me and made me who I am. This is my love letter to not only myself but all black women.” — The names and concepts of each track pay tribute to singer Nina Simone, tennis player Serena Williams, fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad, or activist Sojourner Truth. We picked tracks Cleo and Ageni for our analysis.
Cleopatra Sims
Cleo, the second track on the album, pays tribute to the fictional character of Cleopatra, “Cleo” Sims, from the movie Set it Off (1996) by director F. Gary Gray. A criminal thriller introduces us to four women who are planning a bank heist. The character of Cleo was played by actress Queen Latifah. Rapsody borrows her rebellious nature against systematic oppression and describes her own tough beginnings in the industry, which is suppressing women and even more black women. At the end of the movie, Cleo is completely surrounded but still rises up and fights, unfortunately ending up being gunned down by the police. The release of the track then reflects the earlier-mentioned resistance.
„We ain’t forgot about them shots, jack
They gon’ be mad when I squeeze back“
In both tracks, we encounter Rapsody’s perfect storytelling. In a short cutout from the track below, the rapper describes her own beginnings, when everybody looked at her through the fingers and did not treat her the same as they did her male counterparts. Her peers, due to prejudice, wondered why the artists around her were even talking to her and why she got the chance to release under the 9th Wonder label.
„Remember early on, y’all ain’t treat me all the same though (Uh-huh)
Used to question why the brothers even rocked with me for (Uh)
‘Member y’all wondered, used to wonder ’bout Wonder
Question why they’d ever wanna push a black woman“
Afeni Shakur
Now we go to the end of the album, to the track Afeni. We deliberately chose these two tracks as they perfectly frame Rhapsody’s story and the position of women in the rapgame. Track Cleo was full of prejudice, tough beginnings, aggression, and rebellion that are necessary to keep yourself in this genre. Rhapsody, however, became an artist who won an uncountable number of awards with each of her albums and was respected by the best rappers in the game
In the lyrics of the track Afeni (named after Afeni Shakur, a political activist and mother of rapper 2Pac), the rapper writes a heartfelt letter to all black men and black women about how black women should be respected. She draws on the words of 2Pac himself and samples a speech from his 1993 visit to the Marcus Garvey School and the lyrics to Keep Ya Head Up.
„Now since we all came from a woman
Got our names from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women
Do we hate our women?
Now since we all“
Female rappers are earning more and more respect in the rapgame but are still standing beside the main light beam of the scene, which is really unfortunate because we are getting a huge number of great albums every year, especially from female artists that are not notoriously known. We should cherish albums like Eve, which are commercially successful, keep up the quality, and at the same time deliver an important message.
„My God said, “How much harder we gotta love you?”
– Reyna Biddy
Resources: Udiscovermusic, Billboard, Genius I, II
Translated from Czech by Rado.
