The rap genre has never been welcoming to female emcees, a reality that Eve, one of hip-hop’s most iconic figures, is now openly and bravely addressing.
Her forthcoming book Who’s That Girl?: A Memoir, which marks 25 years since her debut album Let There Be Eve…Ruff Ryders’ First Lady, explores what it meant for Eve to attempt to break through in an industry designed to set her up for failure and self-doubt – and she’s not pulling any punches.
Sitting down with Metro.co.uk from her home in London, Eve displayed the kind of level-headed insight about her own story that’s usually only possible for an outside observer.
The way the rapper, 45, reflects on her long and celebrated career is almost as if she’s speaking about someone else – maybe a younger, messier sister for whom she has limitless compassion. For Eve, the quarter century since her debut album rocked the music industry has been as much about healing as it’s been about maintaining relevance.
‘I say sometimes that I have PTSD, and some people are like, that’s a little harsh, but in a way it is PTSD. I have these feelings and issues and to be quite honest, a lot of it…’ she trails off, trying to think of a concise way to make her point.
‘I take responsibility for the parts of me that were numbing myself and maybe burying my head, but in the same token, you know, I think there’s a lot of women in the business that have their own trauma when it comes to being in this male-dominated space.’
Unfortunately, very little has changed since Eve’s heyday. When she first rose to prominence in 1999, she became only the third female rapper to top the Billboard 200. Shockingly, more than two decades later, there have only been five women to achieve that same feat.
‘That’s insane,’ she exclaims when this is pointed out. ‘I mean that’s insane. There’s still an issue,’ she says, firmly. She adds that while the landscape has improved with more female MCs like Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion dominating the charts, the underlying bias remains.
Even as recently as last year, during the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the overwhelming focus on male artists was undeniable, with the foremothers of modern rap – emcees like Eve – being largely ignored. ‘You know, especially in America, there were exhibitions, there were concerts that would be 25 or 30 men and maybe two females, and Im like what is this? What are we doing? Like, how are we still here?’
Even when Eve was invited into the room where it happens, she was made to feel like staying in that position required far more of her than it did her male counterparts. Even as her first two albums bust through the top of the charts in 1999 and 2001, making her an undeniable force in the industry.
When asked about her relationship with peers like Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown, she recalls how the industry pitted women against each other.
While she and Missy Elliott managed to avoid this kind of beef, she says: ‘For Foxy and Kim, not so much. I think I had come out at a time where they both were piping hot, and I was just this new chick. And that’s the other thing that happens within the industry, at least at that time, that there could only be one or two of us [female rappers]. They made us believe there’s not enough light for us all.’
She adds: ‘I thought it was this big sisterhood, yeah, and it just was not.’
The memoir will also mark one of the first times Eve has opened up about her battle with addiction, a word she didn’t use to describe her relationship with alcohol until writing the book forced her to confront the demons of her past head-on.
‘I was pretty much numbing myself, numbing my pain.’ she recalls. ‘When I did the audio portion of the book and I read through some of the stuff… I say in the book about how I’ve never used the word addiction with myself and reading through I was like, “No, I had a bit of an issue,”’ she says, laughing.
Alongside these revelations, Eve also speaks candidly about her fertility struggles, another area of vulnerability she hadn’t been ready to explore until now. Having welcomed her first child in 2022 with husband Maximillion Cooper, 50, she describes her son as a major influence on both her personal life and professional choices.
‘Everything I do now is for him,’ she says of son Wilde Wolf Fife Alexander Somers Cooper, explaining that her decisions around work and projects are now made with him in mind. Her journey into motherhood, especially as an older mom, has been a major part of what’s caused the Let Me Blow Ya Mind singer to finally take stock of her life so far.
‘Having a kid opens up stuff that I feel like you just are not prepared for. Like how your own family – how you were raised by your family – and other familial things have shaped you as a person. It’s helped me heal a lot of things.’ she says.
It’s clear that Eve is more than just the arbiter of her own story; she’s also an engaged participant who is as ready to take accountability for her mistakes as she is to speak out on the systemic problems that held her back.
When asked how she’s managed to largely avoid the messy personal drama that many rappers’ careers are shaped by, she laughs and says: ‘I mean, I’ve had a lot, I guess it just wasn’t as public. I will say obviously as well I think we got saved – or I got saved – by not having social media at the beginning.’
Still, Eve didn’t manage to entirely escape bad press, but it’s clear she’s made peace with her mistakes as she says: ‘I think my biggest thing ever was probably my DUI. That was like a biggest, you know, biggest hiccup in my career, so to speak.’
She then admits that: ‘There was a lot of me sabotaging myself and a lot of my own self drama, sadly.’
Being her own biggest adversary has had its downsides, certainly, but she’s also been her own biggest inspiration, something she reflects on in the memoir: ‘I am my own competition and nobody can f*** that up. I’m not allowing anything outside of me to mess that up or to take me off path. So I think that while I had all this internal stuff I always was very careful about my business.’
Throughout her trials, the icon sought guidance from many sources, including music royalty, revealing that working with Prince – and getting to know him personally – was a major inspiration for her.
‘Prince is number one, may he rest in peace. Like I got chills just now. I used to call him an alien. I used to be like, you’re an alien. How are you here? How do you even know who I am?’ she says.
‘As the years went on, I would go to a lot of his legendary parties and just sit and have conversations with him. For him to even just recognize me as an artist was so huge to me.’
She continues: ‘He was always dressed immaculately. Always looked insanely beautiful as a man, yeah, and his voice was so deep. And he’d just be talking s***, just asking you questions.’
Few people can count Prince among their confidantes, and if there was ever a life worth writing a memoir about, Eve’s is certainly one of them. In recent years, she’s also become distinctly international, adding a whole new chapter to her unfolding story.
Since marrying her husband in 2014, the Philadelphia native has lived part-time in the UK, giving her the opportunity to compare the UK and US rap scenes.
‘I feel like years ago, when I first started coming here, like in the late 90s, when I would promote stuff, I feel like they were trying to figure out what their hip hop was. And a lot of it was trying to emulate what I guess American hip hop was but now they’ve definitely found their sound,’ she says.
She continues: ‘A lot of the rappers here remind me of what Hip Hop used to be back in the day, in terms of that energy, that hunger, that word play, everything like that.’
As for what else fans can expect from Eve’s book, she shares that some of her favourite memories and anecdotes will be contained in its pages, including what she categorises as the proudest moment of her career: Bringing her mother as her date to the Grammy’s the night she took home the award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
She says the moment was so special, ‘Only because my mom was my date, and I had to go to summer school to get my diploma, and she never saw me walk down the aisle. So for me, that was the equivalent of those things. A moment of her knowing like, “Okay, my kids gonna be alright.”’
As Eve puts together the puzzle pieces of her life story and legacy, she shares that she’s operating from a newfound place of fulfillment. As she puts it: ‘I’ve felt a wholeness that I haven’t felt before.’
From a single conversation with Eve, it’s clear that she’s more than just a legendary artist – she embodies a living history of a transformative era in music. Her reflections on the forces that shaped her life and work promise to make her book an essential portrait of the music industry over the past 25 years – and the changes it still needs to undergo.
But perhaps even more powerfully, the book will allow fans to get to know the inner workings of a woman who has refused to let anything – even fame and a broken music industry – get in the way of self-actualisation.
Who’s That Girl?: A Memoir, will be out on Sept 26.
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