Nicki Minaj not first woman in hip-hop

In many cultures of the world, strong taboos exist concerning who can and can’t play certain… In many cultures of the world, strong taboos exist concerning who can and can’t play certain instruments. In some Gypsy cultures, for example, women dance and sing while men play chordophones, woodwinds and drums. In these cases, culture determines musicianship.

Within the realm of Western popular music, a similar difference seemed to exist in hip-hop before fans and critics started hailing Nicki Minaj as the new matriarch of the genre. Though she’s grasped the style of her male contemporaries at an unprecedented level — and almost defined what female MCs can now do with her debut album Pink Friday — it’s important to recognize that women have been contributing to the hip-hop scene since its inception.

No one’s ever said that women haven’t rapped in hip-hop, but it’s always been a male-dominated genre — women have most often been associated with supporting rolls, and perceived misogyny makes the genre controversial to this day. Minaj’s great contribution comes in her ability to interpret the current modes and styles of genre-leaders like Jay-Z and her Young Money label-mate Lil Wayne through her decidedly female world view. In many ways she broke through hip-hop’s glass ceiling.

In “Moment 4 Life,” she sings the hook with a Rihanna-like intensity over a sample that supplements a mid-tempo drum break with tinges of toy piano and sentimentally synthesized strings. What’s really interesting about the track isn’t her singing or the sample, though, but Minaj’s actual rapping. “In this very moment I’m king / in this very moment I slay Goliath with a sling,” she bellows with a snarl, making it clear she isn’t a feature or a novelty, but rather the main attraction that’s as stoic and serious as Hova or Drake.

Minaj migt be relatively new on the scene, but the contributions of women in hip-hop trace back to the genre’s beginning, marking several other major accomplishments along the way.

The Funky 4+1 formed in 1977 in the Bronx with the same disco-derived style of The Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash, but amongst their number was one of the first female MCs, Sharon Green aka Sha Rock. While polyrhythms move through the background, her articulate toasting organically fuels Funky 4+1’s insatiable beat. It wasn’t just uptown where things happened, though.

The seminal new wave band Blondie is known for lead singer Debbie Harry’s dynamic melodies, but in the multicultural world of late-1970s New York, she was bound to pick up other influences. Punk rock — the movement Blondie was associated with — and hip-hop grew up side-by-side in this environment and, as separate as we tend to view the genres today, they really ought to be viewed as parallel expressions of many similar feelings and ideas.

Harry and her bandmates made friends with Fab 5 Freddy, a seminal early MC associated with Grandmaster Flash. When it came time to work on tracks for their 1980 album Autoamerican, Blondie developed a song called “Rapture” that included a section of Harry rapping in a distinctively early-1980s style.

“Rapture” was a huge hit that introduced a variety of audiences to the genre. While The Beastie Boys were still playing hardcore and Vanilla Ice wasn’t even a twinkle in the eye of the world’s imagination, Harry became one of the first white musicians to channel hip-hop — signaling not just the potential of women in the genre, but also a multicultural appreciation of hip-hop.

Throughout the next 20 years Salt-N-Pepa pushed it (real good), Lil’ Kim made it raunchy and Missy Elliot became the best-selling female rapper of all time. Along with the streams and currents associated with what their male counterparts were doing, musicians like Lauryn Hill went in a different direction, mixing in R&B to create the conscious classic The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.

In recent times, we’ve seen the globe-trekking M.I.A. hone a different edge through her ethnically derived beats, winning the hearts of anyone who could hear the sincerity in her English brogue — or wanted to dance to the “boom boom” song. Even South Africa’s own Die Antwoord owes much of its uniqueness to the effervescently blonde Yo-Landi Vi$$er, a creative partner to the group’s leader, Ninja. Die Antwoord’s new video “Rich Bitch” features her rapping extensively, Ninja a mere supporting actor.

Though it’s often associated with misogyny and male artists, hip-hop has moved toward the goal of being music uninterested in class, origin or gender. With Nicki Minaj, another page is added to the history of women and hip-hop.