Women place a stake in rap genre

A quick sample of rap songs leads you to an obvious conclusion: rappers are cool. They’re…

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Nicki Minaj is one of rap’s famous female voices.

A quick sample of rap songs leads you to an obvious conclusion: rappers are cool. They’re rich, and they flaunt it. They drink excessive amounts of alcohol and do excessive amounts of drugs. Their sexual prowess is legendary.

But the most obvious thing you learn about rappers? Almost all of the time, they’re men.

But 2012 has marked itself as a year full of up-and-coming female rappers, including a new breed of “white female rapper.” Most interestingly, these rappers’ largest fan bases include middle-class girls fit for an episode of HBO’s “Girls.” But what’s changed? Are these female rappers singing about empowering women, or are they simply well-dressed and pretty enough to win over listeners’ hearts?

Of course, that isn’t to say there aren’t or haven’t been female rappers in the past. Some notable examples from the last few decades include Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill and Monie Love. For the most part these women have faded from the spotlight, leaving rap to be dominated by masculinity.

The most obvious example of the genre’s new generation is Azealia Banks. Banks, a 21-year-old Harlem-bred rapper and singer, became famous last winter with her standout hit “212.” A wonderfully filthy mouth and a wise sampling choice led “212” to become a popular song for most of the spring, leading up to the release of her mixtape Fantasea in July.

People love Banks because she isn’t afraid to sing about the same topic that male rappers sing about: sex. She’s been crowned a savior of black gay culture, touring in drag-ball style. And let’s be honest: Rap and homosexuality aren’t two things that go together easily.

One girl built similarly in the fabulous Azealia Banks style is Rye Rye, who incorporates indie ideals into her clever feminist rapping and collaborates with pop stars like Robyn and M.I.A. Also, Iggy Azalea is a blonde Australian who became famous after she released a video for her single, “Pu$$y,” a bold song about sexual gratification for women. These two women rap about how cool they are and how easily they attract members of the opposite sex, all while looking good without sacrificing their bodies to the current hip-hop ideal, much as many would argue Nicki Minaj has.

If you remember, Minaj used to be a well-respected female rapper, and it’s been agreed for a long time that her verse in Kanye West’s “Monster” is the best verse in the song. Despite her ridiculous appearance and overblown physical form, she was able to rap with the best of them in 2010 and early 2011. But Minaj has deteriorated somewhat since, becoming less of an ideal female rapper and more of an ideal hip-hop background dancer who happens to rap. If Minaj is the epitome of the current hip-hop ideal, then people like Azalea and Rye Rye are its antithesis. They already appear more legitimate in their progressive climb up the indie hip-hop ranks.

However, some new female rappers aren’t looking for legitimacy in the current industry. Artists like Kreayshawn and star Kitty Pryde create vaguely clever, vaguely funny rap songs. While Kreayshawn seems more like an internet rap parody (i.e., let’s pick the whitest girl we know and have her trash talk over a catchy beat), Kitty Pryde’s allure comes more from the fact that she looks and sounds like an adorable 16-year-old girl.

And let’s not forget the incredibly weird and yet somehow alluring Yo-Landi Vi$$er, one-half of the South African rap duo Die Antwoord. With her baby voice spewing dirty rhymes and singing how —once again — all the boys want her, Vi$$er appears in control on the group’s summer 2012 single “Baby’s On Fire.” Over the course of the song, Vi$$er shamelessly raps that her sexuality gets her what she wants. For all of Die Antwoord’s novelty, Vi$$er’s rapping is unlikely to make too much of an impact in the hip-hop world, mostly because it’s difficult to look past Die Antwoord’s obvious weirdness and focus on Visser’s rapping quality.

The emergence of a few female rappers probably won’t change the rap game for good, especially when a decent number of them aren’t going to be taken seriously by anyone. But artists like Azealia Banks and Iggy Azalea who are promoting acceptance of female sexuality and gay culture have begun to create a new dimension in the hip-hop world.

But the rap world’s presence will remain intact as long as people keep bragging about themselves — something both men and women are capable of.