subject: Nicki Minaj vs. Lil' Kim: Why Can't Female Rappers Get Along? [print this page] Nicki Minaj vsNicki Minaj vs. Lil' Kim: Why Can't Female Rappers Get Along?
There are times when keeping an eye on top-flight female emcees makes me feel like I'm watchingHighlander: for some reason, there can only be one. Eminem and Jay-Z can burn equally brightly without diminishing each others' lustre, but after Nicki Minaj's long-awaited first album,Pink Friday, was finally released, the diss track that followed from Lil' Kim felt inevitable rather than biting. For some reason, women in hip-hop, especially women at the very pinnacle of the form, seem stuck between the demands of sisterhood and excellence.I don't necessarily think that it's any worse or different for female emcees to battle than it is for male emcees to battle. And I think most hip-hop heads would agree. After all, the first diss track was recorded by a woman,Roxanne Shante, in 1984, and the first real battle was between two women, the two Roxannes. And a diverse cadre of female emcees had no problem getting their shine in hip-hop's early days. So I don't think there is an inherent conflict between women beefin' on wax and creating among female emcees.
Nobody seems to be particularly immune from this tension. In the same track, "I'm the Best," Minaj declares both that "I'm fightin' for the girls that never thought they could win," and calls herself a "Lion of Judah." She's not the only female emcee to embrace that exceptionalist title: Robyn, on her self-titled 2005 album, riffed on Lil' Kim's nickname by dubbing herself the "Queen of Queen Bees, Lioness of Judah."
But maybe women rappers aren't wrong to try to fight for a place at the top, to insist that they're something special. If you're a woman in hip-hop, the market seems to dictate that you can either fight fiercely for one of a tiny number of places at the top, with all the income and gratification it guarantees, or be Jean Grae or Janelle Monae and reap the alternate rewards of artistic freedom and critical respect, but without some of the guarantees of continued employment. This isn't a new complaint, really. Nicki v. Kim is just the latest illustration of the challenges for women in the gameand the ways women don't always make it easy for each other. So what do you two think? Do we have a collective action problem among women in hip-hop? Or a market that only has enough demand to support one Queen Bee?
