Where The Ladies At?

I miss females in hip hop. & for various heterosexual reasons, I'm almost positive I'm not alone.

I would equate the situation to high school P.E. class, on one of those days where the coach decided to separate the two sexes for some activity or test. Before this specific day, the girls were right there with us. We could reach out & touch them if need be. Even the ugly ones that, if they weren't half naked & sweaty, we'd have nothing to do with. But, as soon as they traveled to the other side of the gymnasium for a whole period, we missed them. Even though we might not have wanted them on our basketball team, or our flag football squad, we still needed that assurance to our peripherals that they're a stones throw away.

At one point in time, the female MC was shoulder to shoulder with us in the trenches of hip hop, underground, mainstream or otherwise. For every supercrew of cats ready to spit on demand, there was at least one chick that could hang with the fellas. It was almost as necessary as a logo &/or a hand sign. KRS-one had Ms. Melody, Ice Cube had Yo-Yo, Biggie had Kim (pre-botox & silicone), DMX had Eve, Busta had Rah Digga, Hova had Foxy, Joe/Pun had Remy, Master P had Mia X, E-40 had Suga-T, Wyclef had Lauryn, the list can go on for days.

It seems those roles have now been relegated to scantily clad temptresses that will shake a tailfeather for a couple of hundred bucks & a chance to be seen on BET. Granted, the occasional "video ho" uses that as a vehicle to stardom, but it's not like they're representing hip hop as much as themselves. The estrogen-fueled MC was a welcome piece to the puzzle, painting a completely different picture of the exact same thing we saw. She was our mom, our sister, our bad bitch, our bottom broad whenever the need arose. & unlike the love-struck song bird, or the broken hearted siren, the female rapper was the defiant voice letting the girls know to stand up & be accounted for.

MC Lyte's "10% Dis" took the words "hit the road, jack" & breathed new life into them. Queen Latifah called for unity & dared to ask the loaded question "who you callin' a bitch?". Who could forget that Kimberly Jones not only brought sexy back, but reminded us that women like getting head as much as men. Fox Boogie illustrated that every hustler had a wifey at home just as deep in the drama as he was. Even as the feminism trickled down to the ostentatious, & somewhat pornographic likes of Trina & Khia, it was still advancement in the direction of empowerment for sisterhood worldwide. Unfortunately, this class of hip hopper wasn't as highly regarded as their male counterparts, denoted by today's lack of a prominent female voice in rap music.

Good, bad or indifferent, females in hip hop are becoming far & few between. Whether we need them or not is a personal choice, but I think we can admit we miss them, if only a little bit.