1 Jacki-O photo by Howard Huang
Battle of the MCs
Issue #36
In the thick of jail sentences, rapper-on-rapper beefs, and lack of label support, women know they have to team up to succeed in the hip-hop industry. It’s just a matter of doing it.
By Makkada Selah
Published: June 1st, 2008 | 4:15pm
“It has been hard since I left them,” confides female rapper Gangsta Boo, 28, former member of Three 6 Mafia, the Academy Award–winning — and now all-male — rap group. “And I’m not out here fucking and sucking these niggas to get a situation, so I had to play my position and figure out where I wanted to be and who I wanted to be with.” Calling from an Atlanta recording studio in February 2008, a television blares in the background.
“There was a lot of credibility that I should have been getting that I wasn’t, so now it’s gonna be Gangsta Boo presents Forever Gangsta, and it’s definitely gonna be on some independent shit.”
2008 may be the biggest year for women in hip-hop because many female rappers are releasing albums. But most of these albums — even from the well-known artists — will be released on independent labels. The major labels and the male-dominated hip-hop crews continue to downplay female rappers, and this move toward the femcees' independence — independent labels, and independence from their male mentors and sponsors — has been happening occasionally by choice but more often out of necessity. The majority of women rappers tell the same story: Their projects keep getting pushed back, receive no promotion, or eventually get shelved.
Cases in point: Chicago’s Shawnna left Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace, a division of Def Jam last year. Though she claims in interviews that they parted on good terms, she’s hinted at the fact that she wasn’t adequately promoted. Def Jam dropped superstar rapper Foxy Brown after a 13-year partnership. Brown is releasing her fourth full-length, Brooklyn’s Don Diva, on an imprint called Black Rose Entertainment, which will be distributed by Koch. The contract makes her the first female to have an independent label at Koch. Def Jam is known for not sticking by the female rappers they’ve signed, including Boss, Nikki D, and Hurricane G.
Platinum-selling Lil’ Kim asked to be released from Atlantic Records because of lack of promotion and has now joined up with Queen Latifah’s Flava Unit. Miami’s Jacki-O released one album on TVT and was promptly dropped by her label, so now, just like a good portion of female rappers who once had deals and positions in male crews, she puts out her own music — Jack the Rippa mixtape is her latest. Bronx-bred Remy Ma, 26, who calls herself “the BX Savior” — and one of three female rappers to ever have a number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with Terror Squad’s song “Lean Back” — had a tiff with Fat Joe, the crew’s leader. She says he didn’t pay or promote her adequately. Their label, Universal, released one of Remy’s albums, There’s Something About Remy, in 2006, and it underperformed. But that album, like most female rappers’ albums, received very little promotion. So she left Terror Squad and started her own independent label, Remynisce Music, in 2007. She’s since issued two mixtapes: The BX Files and Shesus Khryst.
Since their creative breakup, Remy Ma disses former boss Fat Joe on records every chance she gets, such as in the self-righteous “Shesus Khryst”: “Pissed on my contract / Dissed Miss Joey / Now I call him Sprint / Cause that nigga mad phony.”
In the song, Remy has the gall to say, “If Jay-Z is Jay Hova and Nas is God’s Son / Then I’m the BX Savior Shesus Khryst” (from the Shesus Khryst mixtape). Her “BX Savior” claim took balls because since the late ’90s, Southern acts have dominated commercial hip-hop, and the North has been looking for a dynamic MC, someone like the Notorious B.I.G. or Jay-Z to “save” New York hip-hop. Remy, born in the Bronx — the birthplace of hip-hop — says she is that savior. Thing is, no one expected the “savior of New York hip-hop” to be a woman.
"When somebody doing they thang,” Gangsta Boo continues, “you just can’t hate. Like Diamond. Right now Diamond is the underdog — she left Crime Mob, and everybody’s watching to see what is Diamond going to do.”
Earlier in the evening, Diamond, 19, formerly of Atlanta crunk stars Crime Mob, says “a mutual decision” had been made for her to leave the group. Often men feel that it’s best to only have one female in a crew, simply because that was the formula in the mid-’90s rap crews featuring Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown. There’s some indication that’s why Diamond was pushed out of the platinum-selling act. The leader of the group, Lil’ Jay, is the brother of the other female rapper, Princess. Now Princess is the lone female, and a fine example of female solidarity in a rap crew has been sadly lost.
The growing consensus among femcees is that “first ladies” male rap crews just isn’t working. It hasn’t even worked ultimately for Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim, as they are no longer working with their respective male crews the Firm or Junior M.A.F.I.A. Rappers like Eve, who’s with Ruff Ryders, and Jean Grae, who’s with Talib Kweli’s Blacksmith, have had to wait and wait for their solo albums to be released. So now there’s talk among women rappers about focusing less on attaching themselves to male crews to instead focus more on forming female crews and releasing music independently. Diamond’s doing the mixtape thing now and coming out independently, too. Her latest is <tki>Bitch Music</tki>. “I’m not a bitch,” she says. “I am the bitch. The baddest bitch”
“You got to have your stuff together,” continues Diamond, on boss-bitch training. “You got to be independent. Make your own money. Make your own decisions.”
Of course, even with these new revelations of sisters doing it for themselves, all is not peace, love, and unity among female rappers. “There’s not a lot of unity among women artists in the industry,” Boo says. “It is what it is. I try not to focus too much on that because I got bigger blunts to smoke.”
‘I’M THAT BITCH’
On a mid-December evening in 2007, Remy Ma sits with her legs crossed in a folding chair at Peaches dance studio in north Miami. The self-proclaimed “Queen of New York” is out on $250,000 bail after allegedly shooting gal pal Makeda Barnes-Joseph regarding $3,000 outside a New York nightspot in July 2007.
Remy Ma’s best friend, Jacki-O — the “Madam of Miami,” the “Queen of the South” — surveys a scene of six sexily clad dancers who shimmy shimmy shake to Remy Ma’s 2006 song “Conceited.” The crack of Jacki-O’s ass spills over the top of her low-riders, and every now and then she unsuccessfully pulls up her painted-on jeans just to demonstrate that her ass can’t be contained.
Along with Chicago’s Shawnna, the two rappers formed a supergroup called 3Sum in 2006. They were supposed to release an album together. But after recording 10 songs with Remy and Jacki, Shawnna left, writing on her MySpace page that she “didn’t want to ruin her relationship with Jacki and Remy. I don’t like to be in an enclosed environment with females.” You’d think she’s talking about wild animals or something.
Remy and Jacki stayed together and released a track on Remy’s Shesus Khryst mixtape called “Whip Game,” which discusses how they’ve got all the men pussy-whipped. “Cars, jewels, and clothes / And I don’t have to suck his dick,” Jacki says in the song.
“Terrible,” Remy says to a dancer who loses her concentration during a solo. They’re auditioning dancers for an upcoming show. Remy Ma’s bright red bangles on her right wrist and gold charm bracelet on her left jingle like sistrums. “Keep in mind, the people who are watching you don’t know what your next move is supposed to be,” she says, jingling some more. “No one knows you made a mistake unless you let them know, so if you make a mistake and you change it to something else, as long as you do it gracefully, and you make a transition so that no one sees it, we’ll never know that you made a mistake.”
Since the shooting, word is Rem’s the hardest female in the game because she’s not afraid to bust shots. Remy’s reckless bravado even caught the attention of veteran Lil’ Kim, who maintains she’s the real “Queen of New York.” In November 2007, Lil’ Kim responded to what she claims were disses directed at her from Remy, recording a freestyle track “I Get Money,” saying, “Who the hell is this chick? / She been out kinda long, had one hot song / I’m sorry I missed it / Too busy being conceited putting on my lipstick.”
“Why are me and Lil’ Kim beefing?” says Remy, gum smacking, repeating the question like an answer, outside the dance studio. She’s getting ready to step into the shotgun position of Jacki-O’s gold H2 Hummer. They’re headed to Santo restaurant and nightclub in South Beach, and her gold diamond-flecked doorknocker bamboo earrings knock one side of her face.
“I wouldn’t say that we’re beefing,” Remy says. “I think she’s trying to start a beef so she can get a buzz. Then she can get some spins on her record because nobody’s listening to her, and who else better to pick on than the only chick that spits nothing but fire — the only one who’s semi-relevant right now. But there’s really no beef at all.” Remy hops in the hummer and it speeds away.
Manufactured “beefs” or disputes are the way many hip-hop artists generate buzz around their music. But, outside the role-play rivalry on rap records, is there unity and sisterhood among female rappers? In two words: hells no. When asked to describe the relationship between today’s female rappers, MC Lyte used the word “cliquey.” “I’m just gonna keep it real and honest,” she says. “Certain female MCs look out for other female MCs.” And just like in high school, there's always the one girl whom everyone loves to hate on, pick on, and isolate. In the very cliquey mainstream commercial female rapper community, that girl is Atlanta-based, Tampa-bred rapper Khia, who became a one-hit wonder with the release of the sexually explicit "My Neck, My Back" in 2002.
Even Gangsta Boo didn't big up Khia, and they’re from the same town. When asked if she would be into doing a song with the other Southern female rappers like Jacki-O, Trina, and Khia, she immediately says, "I didn't say her name, did I?" referring only to Khia. She wanted to make sure it was noted that she is not "down" with Khia.
Khia caused a big stir when in 2006 she declared herself the “Queen of the South” due to her success at marketing and promoting herself as an independent artist. She’s never had a major record deal, though she’s managed to get radio airplay, and in 2006, collaborated with Janet Jackson on a single called “So Excited.” Immediately, Miami’s Trina and Jacki-O laid claim to the “Queen of the South” title, as well as Gangsta Boo. At the 2006 Ozone Awards, Jacki-O and her crew wore “Fuck Khia” T-shirts, and advertisements for Trina’s latest album, Still da Baddest (Slip-N-Slide), released April 1, read, “My album’s coming and that’s no April Fool’s joke — save that for Khia’s album.” But all the femcees hating on Khia seems to be catapulting her into the spotlight.
Khia shocked the industry by appearing as a contestant on this year’s VH-1 reality show Ego Trip’s Miss Rap Supreme, the goal of which is to elect the world’s next best female MC. Some people wondered why an established artist would want to appear on an amateur rapper competition show. Khia has said in interviews that her reason for being on the show is, in a word, promotion. The plan ended up disqualifying Khia during the show’s first episode when she performed “Respect Me.” She’d actually recorded the song in 2006 for her second album and was kicked off for not following instructions to write a “hot 16” — or 16 bars of a rap — in an hour, memorize it, and then perform it. It had to be original, something never performed before.
It’s critical for an MC to master the art of freestyling or improvisation, which Brooklyn activist Toni Blackman supports. Blackman is a rapper who travels the country and facilitates all-female rhyming ciphers for her “I Rhyme Like a Girl” project. The project is aimed at “creating the space for girls and women to learn how to honor their voice and trust their own instincts through improvising.” Blackman says the process of freestyling is a transcendental experience. “Once you master the art of freestyling and improvising,” she says, “you no longer have any limitations and you realize there is perfection even in your mistakes.” A perfect example of this sort of improvisational awakening takes place once Remy Ma and Jacki-O reach the Santo nightclub on this night in December 2007.
“Y’all give me some noise,” says the club’s MC. “Gimme some noise in the building now.” Garnering only a few cheers and yells from the audience, the MC goes at it again. “Yo, we got a live band. We got Mario, Danity Kane. Also make some noise for Mobb Deep up in the building. Where y’all at? Y’all actin’ like somethin’ wrong with y’all.”
The crowd acts like they don’t know whom Mobb Deep is, and some of them might not, being that this is Miami, and Mobb Deep is from New York, but it’s also extremely difficult to get overwhelming responses from the crowd. Jacki-O and Remy Ma are led onstage. Cameras follow.
MC: We got something special. Jacki-O and Remy Ma are starting a female super group called 3Sum. This is the first stop of a national tour to find the third and final member. They’re kicking it off in Miami. If you come onstage to perform, that is your intent to be in the group. Girl MCs only. [Someone corrects him.] Women. Y’all show some love for Remy Ma.
[The audience has to be commanded to clap or else they won’t. They’re harder than the Showtime at the Apollo audience.]
[The MC gives microphones to Jacki and to Remy.]
Jacki: Yo yo yo yo, what’s up ladies? Where my ladies at? Where my street bitches at?
[Some hollers.]
Jacki: Where my niggas at? Where my getting’-money niggas at?
[More hollers.]
Jacki: We really lookin’ for the star member of the group. We going on a worldwide hunt. We looking for that third member. We need to see y’all onstage ’cause this is it for Miami, next stop is …
[The Miami L.I.V.E. band keyboardist softly begins the chord changes to the Commodores’ 1985 tribute song to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, “Night Shift,” which also happens to be Jacki-O’s unofficial theme song since the name “Jackie” is featured so prominently in the track.]
MC: Jacki, I think you need to show them what it <tki>takes</tki> to fuck with you.
Jacki: They already know what it takes.
MC: Yo, you got to set the bar. Set the bar ’cause you a star. Let ’em know who you are.
[Jacki’s theme music gets louder.]
Jacki-O:
And I’m back on the block
Comin’ hard on these hos
Like Jack in the Box
And I got ’em so sick
I’m a self-made bitch
I don’t owe a nigga shit
[The crowd is very loud and, deciding not to try to rap over them, Jacki stops rapping on the next line.]
Jacki: I’m just warming y’all up. I really wanna do some a cappella shit.
Remy, who’s been standing to the side, breaks her silence. “Let’s do some a cappella shit for them, J. Let’s show them what we lookin’ for.”
“Cause I’m that biiitch!” Jacki says, seemingly calling on a force greater than herself.
[The crowd quiets down some. The band cuts out.]
MC: Uh Oh … Y’all bout to see something.
[This is not an easy crowd.]
Jacki: Y’all don’t know who I am. I’m that bitch. I been doing this shit for a long motherfucking time. Fuck what ya heard. This is what the fuck it is.
Jacki-O:
I been reppin’ since junior high school
Started with poetry
No titties so the niggas didn’t notice me
Skippin’ class and hangin’ in the halls
But every time I rap, I could break a nigga balls
Like wow. And they couldn’t understand
How a petite bitch spit lyrics like a man
This was when Death Row brought Rage out
‘Bout the same time All Eyez on Me came out
Yeah, I remember ‘round December I was wildin’
And all I wanted for Christmas was a Pac album
Once I got that Thug Life in me I was good.
And all I really wanted was to rep’ my ‘hood.
Pork ‘N’ Bean Projects
15 Ave
Home of dark clouds, niggas ballin’ for slabs
[Cheers]
Only 15, but I was going fast
And fuck going to school
For now I’m getting cash
Doing credit cards
Running down stores
I’m on the Ave with a trunk full of clothes
TVs and plywood, trunk full of shit
I’m the real deal
Come to my hood
Ask the bitch
I been ridin’ Benzes
Been getting chips
Been telling broke niggas that they can blow clit
MC: So that’s just a little taste of the level y’all need to be on to fuck with these two ladies onstage. So you got to be able to keep up with that shit … Remy?
Remy Ma:
Yeah please believe it
R to the easy
Can’t leave rap alone, the game needs me
Can’t come to the phone, cause I’m sleepin’
Shorty came over
And spent the night on his knees
Goin’ down, down baby
Down just like a rollercoaster
Keep heat baby
Right here in my shoulder holster
Ya’ll got hoodies that go shimmy shimmy pow?
I got big guns; my shit go: click click pow
Y’all like, ‘Look at Rem now.’
I’m like, ‘Yeah look at me.’
Straight stuntin’
Just like my daddy
I got a little fatty and some big ass titties
Even got cut in my face and I’m still mad pretty
And these bitches mad at me
‘Cause these bitches can’t cap me.
So I smile in all my pictures
Yeah, I’m mad happy
I heard you say when you see me
That you was gon’ smack me?
Ha!
Yeah bitch, I’m laughing
This blown out of proportion, don’t gas me
This bitch outta her mind ‘cause she plastic
This bitch been in her prime and she’s garbage
I’m convinced I’m the last bitch standing
And they can’t stand it
That’s why I can’t stand chicks
Shesus Khryst mixtape, you hope it got banneded
You probably hope I go to court
And get remanded
[Cheers]
MC: Remy Ma! So we set the bar. We got some girls for y’all. Miami L.I.V.E. band, I wanna hear that Remy Ma record “Conceited,” and let the ladies freestyle over that. And show ’em what they got.
Of the eight women who come onstage, four of them can’t be heard, and all of that isn’t the band’s fault. It’s because the women haven’t learned to rap so that they’re heard. Most of them don’t even know how to hold the mic, except for one.
She’s the second one to come out. Dressed in an Ecko plaid short-sleeved shirt, jeans, she’s a thin black chick, straightened hair, bob haircut to her ears with gold highlights, contacts to match, baby hair pumping, but her shirt is open to the top of her stomach, revealing a wife-beater T-shirt, forearms tatted up and a platinum link chain containing a charm with the image of a rhinoceros.
She moves like a dyke, and the woman knows how to hold the mic. She clasps it like the neck of a bottle so tense that the bottom, where the cord begins, sticks straight into the air. And unlike the other performers, she gets right up in the faces of Jacki, Remy, the people in front row — which are mostly dudes with fitted caps, cornrows and fades. They seem a little unnerved by her, but also impressed by her flow, the way she commands the stage. She walks around the stage casually; whereas, the other performers either stay in one place too long or hover back too close to the drums. Her deep, husky voice lands right onto of the beat; whereas, the other performers are following the beat. She owns the beat. She is the beat. Her name is Light Bulb.
MC: Yeaaah! That’s what I’m talking bout.
The crowd has to give it up, but the guys onstage are kind of nonplussed, so they quickly move on. The other performers really can’t touch that. The only one who makes a little noise is a skinny, pretty young thing named Ms. Dade County. All the dudes make a lot of noise for her because they’re diggin’ on the way she looks. She’s light-skinned, with long hair, thin as a rail, and her rapping is average.
MC: Wow! She got the style. She got the look and the swagger.
She also got the connections. She holds hands with the MC before she goes onstage.
MC: Somebody might have they lucky chance tonight.
Light Bulb, Ms. Dade County, and two other femcees are invited to do “another 16,” in a nearby studio later with only Remy, Jacki, and a cameraman in attendance.
When Remy returns to her seat, lots of dudes approach her, giving her pounds, saying, “I fucks wit’ you, Rem” — more men than women. Remy knows men will respect and are turned on by thuggish women, so that’s what she has become in order to survive — survival equals being sexually appealing to men. In his 2006 track “Gangsta Bitch,” Louisiana rapper Lil’ Boosie says he wants a woman who’ll “steal for him like Jacki-O and thug like Remy.”
“I gotta be a bitch,” Rem says in a 2005 freestyle. “It’s many men that I gotta let know that I’m the hottest chick.” The MC onstage says, “Remy, you looking good.” The male opinion is crucial to these two women’s success. Men are the ones with the power. The men are whom they’re primarily rapping for.
YO MAJESTY VS. GOD-DES & SHE
“They be wanting us to look like a couple when we take pictures,” says Jwl. B, 28, of openly lesbian rap duo Yo Majesty. She’s sitting in her bandmate Shunda K’s Tampa Bay apartment the day before the two take off on a week tour of France. The black female alternative rap duo has generated a major following. Now they’re signed to Domino Records, a U.K.-based label, with their first album being released this year. They don’t call themselves dykes, but “dominant women.”
Jwl. B talks about a photo shoot that Yo Majesty did with a prominent music magazine. “The photographer was on some freak shit. He wanted me to take off my shirt and show my titties, and I wanted to knock the hell out of him.”
“He said, ‘Get closer.’ ‘Look more feminine,’” adds Shunda K. “I said, ‘What the fuck, dog. We don’t go together.’”
“Because we’re women, they try to make us sex symbols,” explains Jwl. B.
Shunda K coughs. She’s coming down with a cold.
“Please make sure she drinks one gallon of water before she gets on that plane,” Jwl. B says to Shunda K’s girlfriend Tedra, a petite black woman with braids who’s whipping up some baked chicken, ox tails, collard greens with turkey neckbones, cornbread, potato salad, and banana pudding. Shunda K sits on the couch next to Jwl. B, assembling a grill they just bought to cook some hotdogs and bratwursts on Shunda K’s Tampa patio, which overlooks a park.
“So we talk about lesbian sex in some of our songs,” continues Jwl. B. “Big deal. Everybody wants to be so holier than thou when they know I’m a lesbian, but you just sat here and told me how you sucking on this nigga dick, you done jumped on his dick, you hit this nigga for the cash, you done stole his brick, you done flipped that shit. You selling weed, rocks …”
Because of the group’s bold stage presence and unusual sound, other gay-positive female groups have latched onto their popularity, like white female Brooklyn lesbian rap outfit God-des & She — creators of the songs “Lick it” and “I Hate Your Ex-Girl.”
Shunda K: They tried us one night. They was begging to open up for us in New York during our last U.S. tour. But they wanted us to pay them $200. The whole tour, we e-mailing them, saying we ain’t paying them shit: “If you wanna open up, that’s on you because we already got our own opening act.” We don’t even know who these people are. So after the show, when it’s time to settle the money out, I go down and collect the money. I’m getting ready to walk back up the stairs. I’m in the basement and shit.
So, I’m walking back up the stairs and the rapper, God-des, she’s standing on the stairs with this other black bitch behind her. They standing there, blocking my path.
Jwl. B: Shunda, I get mad every time I hear this.
Shunda K: It was fucked up cause they came and asked you where I was…
Jwl. B: I said last time I remember, she went downstairs….I didn’t know they were cornering Shunda into a corner demanding this money from her. Like they fittin’ to do something. This tall jolly green giant lookin’ bitch, I would have broke her down like a midget…
Shunda K: So they corner me, and they like, “Where’s our money?” I’m like, “What you talking bout? Look man, we ain’t fittin’ to give y’all shit. We already told y’all. We ain’t ask you to open up for us.” They were still talking shit, so I was like, “Whatever. The devil is a liar,” and kept moving. I was just <tki>so</tki> mad. Because another thing I found out is that they had asked the crowd, “How many of y’all here tonight to see God-des & She?” disrespecting our territory. Bitch, what the fuck! You here on <tki>our</tki> ticket. They were just wilding out the whole night. And I didn’t even want to tell Jwl ’cause I already knew she was gonna fuckin’ lose it. But I was mad and I wanted something done, so I told her.
Jwl. B: So as they were getting ready to leave, I approach her very directly. “What seems to be the problem? If you got a problem with Yo Majesty, you come see me, Jwl B. Don’t bother Shunda K.” But then she gets rude. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. I don’t have to come see you.”
Apparently there was a shouting match between both camps and attempts to hold people back to avoid a melee.
Shunda K: Then God-des said, “You’re nothing but a big bully!”
Jwl. B: I said, “You’re a big bully. All of you are big bullies!” I pulled out those $200. I said, “Look at that. We could have shitted out those $200. But because of how ya’ll act… You have to respect people. You asked to be on the show with us. We don’t even know y’all.” I just wanted her to feel how hard I can hit. But she ain’t want none…
At long last, female rappers are beginning to recognize the importance of strengthening their coalitions. Even through their fallings-out, they’re taking stock in their successes and failures to work together and release music together, acknowledging that while it usually takes male collaboration, management, or friends for a female artist to get her foot in the music industry's door. Female rappers — gay and straight alike — ultimately need to align themselves and collaborate with each other in order to survive long term.
Happily, MC Lyte says that after years of beef, veterans Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown have called a truce. “From what I understand they’re about to work together on a project that is way overdue and they have patched things up,” Lyte says. Remy Ma and Jacki-O started 3Sum, they claim, because they saw the need. “Remy and I are just two people,” Jacki-O says after that late-night dance rehearsal at Peaches dance studio in Miami. “We’re about it. However, women all over the world have to join in with us and be about it. Not just say, ‘Oh yeah, we about this movement’ and nothing gets done, like really be interested in trying to uplift each other, helping each other, ’cause the men ain’t gonna do it. They ain’t gonna help us. That’s why the hip-hop game is so fucked up now for women. ‘Cause the men ain’t gonna help us. You know what I’m sayin? And they makin’ all the money. It’s strength in numbers. There’s definitely strength in numbers. And we have to do this shit ourselves.”
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