The state of women in rap is heavily debated these days, thanks in large part to women dominating the genre in a way they never have before. Whether it’s Latto becoming the first rapper to top the Billboard Hot 100 this year or Nicki Minaj breaking records before her upcoming Pink Friday 2 album even drops, women are running things, and will seemingly continue to do so.
Even still, many within the culture can’t help but comment on the perceived hyper-sexuality displayed by the most popular women in the game today. While there are some who find it vulgar and wish to eradicate overtly sexual material from the culture altogether, others are seeking balance in representation.
After all, Lil Kim, Foxy Brown, Trina and others have been embracing their sexuality on wax for decades — and were often considered feminists for doing so — as they stood beside fellow MCs like Da Brat, Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliott. This prevented the sexy sub-genre from over-saturating the industry, which some argue is happening today. Some also argue that the raunchiest of rappers from that era didn’t rely solely on their sexuality to push records.
Rapper Lil Kim (Kimberly Denise Jones) performs during the Big Beat/Atlantic Records showcase at the Impact Music Convention at the Fontainebleau Hilton Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida in April 1997. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)
This begs the question, why aren’t today’s female artists who are more akin to Lauryn than Kim being given the same support their artistic foremothers were given? Rappers like Rapsody, Chika, Noname and several others immediately come to mind when one thinks of women with “bars” who don’t rely on their sexuality to get by, but their projects often go unsung compared to their raunchier counterparts thanks to a lack of promotion and all around support.
This leads many surface-level rap fans to assume overtly sexual rhymes are all women have to offer when, in fact, labels and much of the media heavily push the scantily-clad sure thing, and as always, sex sells.
Then again, others will argue that male rappers have rhymed about sex explicitly for decades, as well as embracing other clichés, without the same level of backlash.
Several Hip-Hop heads have shared their thoughts on the regularly debated hot topic. Check out views from both supporters and detractors below.
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Nikki D
Image Credit: Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for VH1. Def Jam’s first female signee, Nikki D, felt the need to vent her frustration over what she deems the “prostitution era” of female Hip-Hop after seeing Ice Spice perform in a Betty Boop costume that exposed her backside to the crowd.
“Oh come TF on!!! You mean to tell me, this is true talent.. the Female genre of hip hop today is the ‘prostitution era’, fight me!!,” wrote Nikki D on social media. “Notice the ONLY 2x’s the crowd reacts.. during the familiar ‘munch line’ and when she turns around to show her a**!!”
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Khia
Image Credit: Ray Tamarra/Getty Images “My Neck, My Back” rapper Khia took issue with being compared to young, risqué artists like Sexyy Red and Sukihana, going on an Instagram Live rant in October 2023 deeming them “h*es.”
“I’m ’bout tired of y’all comparing me to these h*es,” she said in the clip. “I said, ‘My neck, my back, my pu**y, and my crack.’ Not these ni**as out here, these hoes out here… I still stood 10 toes down like a motherf**king queen. Hair still wrapped like the first day.”
She continued, “I ain’t changed a bit, okay. It’s respect me. It’s snatch the motherf**king cat back. It’s don’t trust no motherf**king ni**a. Get your own sh*t. It’s tell that ni**a to hit the motherf**king door. You wanna f**k these bi**hes, you wanna f**k these h*es.
“It ain’t ‘eat no ni**a’s a** and suck no ni**a’s toes,’” she added in reference to Sukihana’s viral song, “Eating.” She also made reference to the recent sex tape that was seen on Sexyy Red’s Instagram story.
“I been out here 25 years and y’all ain’t seen no pictures of my pu**y, no videos of me sucking d**k, my phone never been stolen and y’all ain’t seen me with no man, bi**h,” she said. “And I got a motherf**king husband. Y’all ain’t never seen me do sh*t. Y’all ain’t seen no husband, no children, no ni**a I’m f**king… Y’all ain’t never seen me twerking, y’all ain’t seen my pu**yhole from the back… Y’all ain’t got sh*t on the queen.”
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Trina
Image Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for SiriusXM Trina spoke up in defense of Sexyy Red and Sukihana when asked if she thinks their sexual lyrics and personas are taken too far.
“I mean, they’re young girls, they’re young women, but it’s still, this is a freedom of speech. Like we’re not locked up, we’re not chained down, say what you want to say, make music of what you feel like. This is their experience, their struggle, their raunchiness, their whatever they feel, wherever they came up with, their struggle, their circumstance.”
She went on, “If you don’t like it, guess what? Don’t listen. That’s why we have ears.”
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Jermaine Dupri
Image Credit: Prince Williams/WireImage During a 2019 sit-down with People TV, Jermaine Dupri had trouble telling viewers who his favorite female rapper was, as according to him, “They all rapping about the same thing,” deeming highly sexual bars “stripper rap.”
“I don’t think they’re showing us who’s the best rapper. For me, it’s like strippers rapping. As far as rap goes, I’m not getting who’s the best rapper. I’m getting, like, OK, you got a story about dancing in the club, you got a story about you dancing in the club, who’s going to be the rapper?”
After receiving a response from Cardi B — who argued that today’s consumer ignores lyrical women in Hip-Hop — JD was inclined to agree in a 2020 follow-up interview.
“Cardi B said it best — the fans don’t seem to want to hear this. It’s not about the industry,” the producer said of skilled female MCs. “If the fans want to hear females rap, they’ll make it that way. They’ll make that happen. But as for right now, that’s not what they want. That’s not what they want to hear. They want to hear what they’re hearing. So it is what it is.”
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Cardi B
Image Credit: John Nacion/WireImage Following Jermaine Dupri’s initial comments on what he deemed “stripper rap,” Cardi B shared her take on rappers like herself fixating on sex, first joking that her “pu**y” is her “best friend” before explaining her stance.
“First of all, I rap about my pu**y because she’s my best friend and second of all it’s because it seems like that’s what people want to hear,” Cardi explained via Instagram, adding that her songs that don’t center on sex often don’t do as well as the ones that do.
“When I did ‘Be Careful’ people was talking mad sh*t in the beginning like ‘What the f**k is this?’ ‘This is not what I was expecting.’ It’s like if that’s what people ain’t trying to hear then I’m going to start rapping about my pu**y again.”
She later name-dropped several lyrical women — including Tierra Whack and Oranicuhh — while pointing out that the masses don’t support them.
“There are female rappers who rap their a**es off who don’t talk about their pu**y and y’all don’t support them. So don’t blame that on us when y’all not the ones who are supporting them.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzylk5vHDRV
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Hitmaka
Image Credit: Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET Producer Hitmaka, f.k.a. Yung Berg, expressed his desire to work with “a pretty female rapper that’s strictly about bars” in December of 2022, calling what he classifies as “pu**y rap” played out due to oversaturation.
“Pu**y rap was cool when it had shock value & was rare. Now it’s like every girl taking it there. It’s sum who aren’t but they need a hit producer 4 impact,” he expressed on Twitter in a now deleted tweet.
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Asian Doll
Image Credit: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images. Rapper Asian Doll was one of many women who took issue with Hitmaka’s statement, arguing that male rappers also repeat cliché topics (money, women, violence, etc.) that have been run into the ground.
“I feel like why do ni**as always worried bout what female rappers rap about? Ni**as been rapping bout the same thing since rap was invented,” Doll tweeted at the time. “ladies rap for the ladies not for you ni**as & we running sh*t rn so let us be US!”
“Even tho I don’t only rap about my pu**y, still Stfu.”
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Baby Tate
Image Credit: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images Baby Tate also took issue with Hitmaka’s statement, calling him out in a song appropriately titled “Pu$$y R@pp3r.”
In the song, the rapper calls out the producer for his judgmental stance while simultaneously ghostwriting for the kind of rappers he’s publicly critiquing.
“N***a just said the female bars so wack. Ain’t you writing ’em?… He a man writing about a p***y, I knew he had a little d**e in him,” she raps. Other notable lines include, “Rap n***as can’t rap unless there’s a perk involved/ N***as jerkin’ off in a circle, talkin’ ’bout female rap, who hurtin’ y’all?/ You probably couldn’t pull a bi**h even if the bitch was a service doll/ N***a, how dare you? Make a hit for yourself/ Ain’t been hot since Mims “Hot,” Love & Hip-Hop ain’t help.”
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1406980183″ params=”visual=true&show_artwork=true&maxheight=750&maxwidth=500″ width=”100%” height=”400″ iframe=”true” /]
She later clarified that she had no beef with the beat-maker.
“The call was for a ‘pretty female rapper strictly about bars’ and instead of being a d**k rider and a pick me I decided to bar mr hitmaka up. There are plenty of GORGEOUS rappers with a plethora of topics & a slew of bars. U just have to open ur eyes,” she wrote. “Also can we release women rappers from the shackles of beauty? These ni**as be ugly in peace why can’t we?”
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Fabolous
Image Credit: Aaron J. Thornton/FilmMagic Fabolous doesn’t have a problem with more risqué rap coming from women, but does feel it’s the only kind of female rap that receives proper promotion and support, leading to its oversaturation in the game.
“I love hearing female rappers talking some real sh*t,” Fabolous wrote on his Instagram Story July 2023. “Women are so strong. Have so many stories and perspectives that we need to hear in pure form. No disrespect to any female rappers out there, but I think there’s only one style of female rap/Hip Hop being promoted, programmed and looked at as successful now.”
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Cheryl “Salt” James of Salt-N-Pepa
Image Credit: Paras Griffin/Getty Images Cheryl “Salt” James of Salt-N-Pepa complained of there being “only a certain type” of female rapper following Nicki Minaj’s entrance into the game, calling that type “overtly sexual.”
“There was a long time when there were no women…There was a big gap and then Nicki Minaj came out and she led the charge. Then all these women started going behind her. But there’s only a certain type and it’s overtly sexual,” she told The Sun in May 2022. “It feels like there is a championing of the more sexual you are, the better.”
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Snoop Dogg
Image Credit: Henning Kaiser/picture alliance via Getty Images Snoop Dogg was one of many who were taken aback by his first listen to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “W.A.P.”, sharing in late 2020 that he wished artists would leave something to the imagination.
“Oh my God. Slow down. Like, slow down. And let’s have some imagination,” Snoop said of the song’s lyrics. “Let’s have some, you know, privacy, some intimacy where he wants to find out as opposed to you telling him.”
“To me, it’s like, it’s too fashionable when that is secrecy, that should be a woman’s…that’s like your pride and possession,” he continued. “That’s your jewel of the Nile. That’s what you should hold onto. That should be a possession that no one gets to know about until they know about it.”
The Long Beach, Calif. native — who’s recorded his own explicit anthems over the years — admitted that in his younger years, he may have hopped on a remix. As an “older man” however, he sees things differently.
“When I was young, 21 or 22, I may have been with the movement, I probably would have been on the remix,” Snoop said. “But as an older man, it’s like, I love it that they’re expressing themselves and doing their thing, I just don’t want it that fashionable to where young girls feel like they can express themselves like that without even knowing that that is a jewel that they hold onto until the right person comes around.”
