By Pavan Kaur Ubhi

“Tell me, what is the plight of a female emcee’s fate or what’s the word of a woman’s story to a DJ?” asks underground female emcee, Akua Naru, in her first single, “The World is Listening”, released off her album, The Journey Aflame.

To respond to a sincere question like that, one must be honest. For a long while, hip-hop history, with regards to a woman’s plight, had no roots. The days where female emcees like Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Jean Grae, Toronto’s own Michie Mee, and Lauryn Hill reigned the rap scene seemed long gone as of the new millennium. Even the more contemporary acts of the female emcee world that had taken over (rappers like Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Trina, and Eve) were declining in demand by the early 2000s. This is not to say that the “femcees” became obsolete, but to merely point out that, once again, the game was about to change and the woman’s word would not mean a dime in the hip hop world.

From one perspective, blame can be put predominantly on the industry that had taken a folk art grown from oppression and transformed it into an overtly stereotypical medium. Other perspectives to why this downfall in the quality of hip-hop occurred argue that it became an extension of the oppression that hip-hop was fighting against to begin with. The racist/sexist corporations that did not want coloured people to excel in music could not fight the popularity of the genre, so they decided to penetrate it and take the wealth of quality and knowledge from it. Again, the plight of the female emcee meant pennies to the industry, or would be too costly to acknowledge. The good woman’s word might have given hip-hop a conscience again.

But what’s been going on now? Is there room and is there demand for the lovely ladies to re-enter the game?

To a certain extent, by the indications of what kind of artists have been coming out and coming back into the hip hop scene, the answer is yes. Many like to accredit the “beginning of the return” to specific artists, most notably Nicki Minaj. But, in doing so, hip-hop fans make the mistake of being superficial.  This resurrects the problem that occurred to emcees like Lauryn Hill in the late 90s, when the industry was forcing her into that box of what a female emcee should look like. This backlash is simply one of being confined to a male-oriented genre.

It is wiser to accredit the return of the female emcee to the overall revival of the alternative hip-hop scene. What this allowed for was not just artists like Nicki Minaj, but also artists like M.I.A who came out before Nicki but arrived later in the mainstream scene. This also meant that there was an underground influx of female rappers coming to relevance, like home-grown talent Eternia, who is an Ottawa native. This retrospective “alternative” resurgence has also opened the doors to many famous veteran artists to be given the freedom of coming back, like Lauryn Hill who has been on tour for the past 2 years. The list can go on as the effect of the sisterhood has started to snowball for the past few years and many opportunities are being made.

The most important factor is that there is a demand and the demand for a voice for our ladies. Sure, we are all used to the male perspective and of course there are some amazing lyricists. But with this being said, a young lady like me experiences a whole world opening up upon hearing my own thoughts coming out of those speakers from another woman’s voice.