On this episode of Our Body Politic, guest host Callie Crossley, who is a host and commentator for GBH Boston, looks back at the first 50 years of women in Hip-Hop with educator and MC Queen D and author and cultural critic Aisha Durham. Then Callie talks with journalist Brooklyn White about the iconic Missy Elliot, the first woman Hip-Hop artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We round out the show by hearing from our viewers about what Hip-Hop means to them and the impact it’s made on their lives.
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This is Our Body Politic. I'm Callie Crossley, host and commentator for GBH Boston. Sitting in for Farai Chideya. This year marks 50 years since the birth of Hip Hop. And in this show, we're doing just as the legendary Queen Latifah commanded. We're putting the ladies first here to talk about women and the first five decades of Hip Hop is Aisha Durham, professor at the University of South Florida, cultural critic and author of Home With Hip Hop: Feminism, Performances and Communication and Culture. Welcome, Aisha.
Aisha Durham [00:01:41] Thank you. It's good to be here.
Callie Crossley [00:01:43] Oh, I'm delighted to have you. Also joining me is Queen D. Scott, professor at Berklee College of Music, Hip Hop educator and emcee. Thanks for being here, Queen D.
Queen D. Scott [00:01:53] Thank you so much for having me.
Callie Crossley [00:01:55] All right. Let's start with a great question. What is your earliest memory of women in Hip Hop? Aisha, I'll start with you.
Aisha Durham [00:02:03] Oh, you're dating me? I'm as old as Hip Hop right now. So I can tell you what it wasn't. It wasn't necessarily looking at music videos or even listening to finalize versions of rap songs. It was really in terms of homegirls in the neighborhood who were creating their own rhymes. We were creating our own rhymes and sharing them with each other. That's how Hip Hop was a part of my everyday life before it became packaged and sold to us.
Callie Crossley [00:02:44] Oh, wonderful. How about you Queen D?
Queen D. Scott [00:02:46] I think my first encounter with women who rhyme were my cousins who double-dutched. Outside of that, I would say Ladies First, Queen Latifah, was my first time seeing this powerful woman who was rapping and had the audacity to call herself Queen, which was why I put Queen in my emcee name. Her and my mom were the two Black queens that had everybody calling them queen outside of the house. So that made a really big impact on me. Queen Latifah specifically.
Callie Crossley [00:03:16] Okay. Now, the late eighties seem to stand out when it comes to women in Hip Hop, Aisha, can you tell us what was going on in 1988? In 1989?
Aisha Durham [00:03:26] 1989 is seen as a golden year in Hip Hop and is the golden year for a host of albums that they usually point to men. But Lady's First can be seen as encompassing. What we mean and what we talk about in terms of Hip Hop feminism is the idea of women collaboration as well as competition, but collaboration. We also see the idea of empowerment as well as thinking about diasporic Blackness. And that's something that we did not really think about then. Queen Latifah invited us to think about Hip Hop, not just in terms of our our neighborhoods or our regions, but really in terms of globally. Like Queen said, this is also one of the ways in which we begin to see ourselves as not being behind the mic or a sidekick or one part of the crew, but actually being up front. And I think what Queen Latifah and others before her, along with her MC Lyte and Sweet Tee, they also usher in a way of thinking about Hip Hop in terms of its political consciousness. And so 1989, at the same time that you have Queen Latifah, you also have Public Enemy. You also have NWA. You have a kind of critical awareness that Hip Hop is bringing that moves away or accompanies the kind of party association to the political awakening or awareness in Hip Hop culture. And we cannot talk about that today without talking about Queen Latifah.
Callie Crossley [00:05:03] So Queen Latifah released her album All Hail the Queen in 1989. But MC Lyte, as you refer to her, released her album Lyte as a Rock in 1988. And one of the cuts off that album was I Cram To Understand U.
Aisha Durham [00:05:18] I Cram To Understand U, yes.
Callie Crossley [00:05:20] Queen D. What were the topics that these women emcees were focusing on that set them apart from the men in Hip Hop?
Queen D. Scott [00:05:27] Yeah, I think Dr. Durham hit the nail on the head when she talked about female empowerment. There was a different focus on what it means to be powerful and different expressions of power when it is expressed through the female body. And I think that that was one of the things that female emcees could speak about in a different way than how men were expressing power and Black empowerment. I think Black female empowerment was something that was not being talked about in the Black Power songs that we were hearing in Hip Hop. Not that it was bad, but that we needed the voices of Black women emcees to address those issues. And then I think that the storytelling aspect at that time was also very different. So when a man tells a story about a relationship, it has a different tone and has a different perspective than when the woman tells the other side. We saw that when, you know, Roxanne Shanté is responding to UTFO and she's having Roxanne's revenge when she's telling the silent, the invisible side of that story, it adds a different dimension, a different perspective, almost like accessing some more emotional details that are not accessible in the stories of the men, which, you know, in Hip Hop is a lot about braggadocio. And I think the way that Roxanne Shanté, Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah present braggadocio, the way that they express it in their lyrics is so expansive because they're drawing on so many other ways of being powerful.
Callie Crossley [00:07:03] Mm hmm. All right, Aisha, we're moving into the nineties. What kind of effect do you think the women emcees making waves in the 1980s, coming out and being as powerful as the Latifah's and the MC Lytes had on the rising stars of the nineties?
Aisha Durham [00:07:17] Well, in the nineties, I mean, we can use Yo-Yo, we're stepping into the nineties as a way of thinking about unapologetically being female. And that comes with not only owning women's empowerment in terms of political power, but only woman sexual power, because before then you have women who were singing the hooks, background dancers, or even just the visual aspect. But in the nineties you had these same women moving to the front and in some cases using the same language as men with the braggadocio or even using profane, raunchy, which we take for granted now. But it was really something specific then.
Callie Crossley [00:08:00] Revolutionary.
Aisha Durham [00:08:02] Yes, but it was…it was ratchet in the 90 still going back or referencing that political awareness but using that sex appeal. Political awareness. Collaboration and competition in the nineties. In the nineties you also see a distinction in terms of the visual aspect of Hip Hop where you have Yo! MTV Raps, you have Rap City. So Hip Hop now is not only just relegated to the coasts, but it is now, you know, nationwide. And so that also propels a particular kind of look and Hip Hop. So we began to see how the visual element in the nineties becomes as important as the emcee. This, in some ways propels some artists who may not be the best lyricists, but they may be the best in terms of representations of how we imagine a woman emcee to be. But I can say the nineties that we are going where the Yo-Yo to, even by the time of the end of the nineties where we have someone like Foxy Brown, a Lil Kim, there's a different way in which we begin to think about women in Hip Hop.
Callie Crossley [00:09:16] All right, let's hold Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim for a second. Queen Dee won a couple of key moments for you that stand out when it comes to women in Hip Hop during the 1990s.
Queen D. Scott [00:09:25] Oh, in the nineties. Well, the forbidden for me was Lil’ Kim. That was, you know, was not allowed to listen to her. I already got popped upside the head for listening to push it and singing along with it out loud and that was just push it. But I would say in the nineties TLC Crazy Sexy Cool. I definitely thought I was going to be Left Eye when I grew up because I really liked the combination of the musicianship in Hip Hop because I wasn't rapping at the time. I was just playing keys and I was a little closeted rapper. So TLC being able to see them. Musicianship in here, like pianos behind them and also have Left Eye… Her rhyme schemes are just insane, her skill level. Just to have that type of musicianship and lyrical skill all together in one place, in one group, All Women was just a beautiful moment in Hip Hop for me.
Callie Crossley [00:10:24] Okay, Lil’ Kim and Lil’ Kim's Impact. We're here now with the rise of stars like Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim. We see this bold new expression that you, too, have talked about with femininity and sexuality upfront. This is from women emcees in the nineties and 2000s. We definitely hear it in Foxy Brown's Get Me Home and Lil’ Kim's Crush on You. Their debut singles Asia. You were talking about how television visualizes Hip Hop and women are owning their sexuality. What about these two songs really makes that point?
Aisha Durham [00:10:58] I think both of these songs talk about women's sexuality and owning their sexuality. By the time we get to today and we see WAP and everybody is talking about it, I am saying that in the nineties we had a way of understanding how to think about women's sexuality and young women’s sexuality through Hip Hop. Hip Hop becomes a space where we're having serious conversations not only in terms of sexually transmitted infections and diseases, but we're also talking about pleasure. So the idea of pleasure is something that women bring to the table and pleasure on our own terms. That's happening because you have in the 1990s, a proliferation of female emcees and artists who are experimenting not only in terms of lyricism. They're drawing back from Patti LaBelle and others to think about how in the 1970s and 1980s we’re still as Black women trying to think about how we're able to talk about pleasure and sexuality without being attached to these long standing conceptions of Black women's hypersexuality. So Hip Hop provides that kind of space. And Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown, they have been the best to ever do it, not only in terms of lyricism, in terms of the cadence, in terms of the ways in which they're putting words together, the metaphors that they're using at this time. This is a way in which we have not heard rap and rhyming before that they bring to the table the visual just as a bonus to it. So they may look like what we would then call the video vixen, but they are video vixen with a voice.
Callie Crossley [00:12:45] Mm hmm. Now, just so because everybody doesn't know all these songs, I want to just make clear to our audience that when you said WAP, that was Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's mega-hit. So they would say, You want to go listen to it, They'll know what you're talking about. All right, what's your take on it, Queen D?
Queen D. Scott [00:13:02] Well, I think that Dr. Durham summed it up perfectly, But if I could add one thing, I think in the nineties we were also seeing these remixes, especially coming from Bad Boys label. And if you heard the radio version of One More Chance, and you're like, Oh, let me go buy this album by Notorious B.I.G. The radio edit, there's all these women in there singing all the hooks in the music video with that version and everything. When you went to listen to the album version, it did not sound like that. It was much raunchier, and Lil’ Kim being on that same label had some similar songs. So what we know as Not Tonight or the Ladies Night remix that has all of the women and they're all, you know, having this wonderful collaborative moment in celebration of womanhood and women's pleasure. When you go to listen to the original version, the album version of that song, it is a completely different song. And it is not safe for work. It is…
Callie Crossley [00:14:00] Okay.
Queen D. Scott [00:14:01] But it also speaks to the way in which I think there was a lot of creativity. We wouldn't have WAP without the ways in which Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim were able to craft their lyrics at a time where they knew they were heavily censored. So some things were not going to make it on the radio, some things were not going to be approved for the album. We were censored even on record in a way that we're not today. They had to be way more creative in the ways that they were allowed to talk about sexuality and about women's pleasure, knowing how much backlash they were going to get and how that would impact record sales in a way that we don't really face in the same ways today.
Callie Crossley [00:14:41] So let's move next to the 2000s and the 2010s, which, you know, means I'm going to want to talk about another well-known woman on the mic, Nicki Minaj. What does Nicki Minaj represent in this era of Hip Hop Asia?
Aisha Durham [00:14:56] Nicki Minaj For me, she is the person who's going to capitalize, not only in terms of that kind of ownership of her body, but she sees her body itself in the way in which she's using her lyrics and her image as a commodity. And it's self commodification is self objectification. She's self aware of the ways in which her body is used. I mean, the way in which she uses personas is a way of thinking about how she commodified herself in understanding the kind of market. And what Nicki Minaj does is she also brings a desperate kind of understanding of Hip Hop for her Trinidadian self. She reminds us of the roots of Hip Hop and in terms of lyricism, even when she's amongst the men in her contemporaries, whether you're talking about Lil’ Wayne or Drake. She comes in and she can take on a male persona and still rap. There's a playfulness that she brings to Hip Hop, even in terms of her lyricism, even in terms of the characters that she takes on in music video. So I think the entrepreneurship social media, she's seeing how she can use media in order to create kind of the life of her music. So there's great business savvy that it's happening with Nicki Minaj. And in terms of the lyricism, she's opening up, the spaces in which women can speak so they don't have to just speak about relationships in that way. So I think what Nicki Minaj does, I mean, she becomes a prototype for all of the emcees that we would even mark today in terms of women in Hip Hop.
Callie Crossley [00:16:37] So, Queen D, this is at the point where music is officially on digital platforms. How did it help women emcees get their music out to new audiences?
Queen D. Scott [00:16:47] Yeah, I was just going to say I think that Nicki's entrance marked the beginning of D.I.Y. culture. Like the independent artists, the social media artists. While there was for a while a noticeable drought in commercial or major label female emcees past one album or one single. There was a noticeable incline in the amount of female emcees that you could find, you know, on SoundCloud or Bandcamp or just through any of your social media platforms as recommended by friends or festivals. So they were out here, they just weren't out here in the ways that we traditionally would be looking for them or had been used to finding them, which I thought was very interesting because Nicki Minaj always gets a lot of flack for kind of gatekeeping female emcees. And I mean, she she was a little, you know, aggressive, you know…But I think that was that was also like a design. I think we also saw a lot of designing fierce competition amongst women emcees, especially major labels. So it was the one spot that the one woman could have was emphasized in a way that went unspoken in the past with major labels and crews and all of those things. And that was an unspoken rule in something that had become spoken and very in-your-face in the era that we see Nicki Minaj in, so I don't fault her for being as protective of her, you know, I hate to use the word quote unquote, spot or her brand in the way that she felt that she had to do it. I really think that that was a record label design flaw presenting itself in real time. But I started discovering many other, quote unquote, underground or independent female emcees. And that was, you know, you kind of inundated with that on the Internet at that time.
Callie Crossley [00:18:41] Well, you know, one of the people that perhaps Nicki Minaj felt, felt a way about it as as the folks would say, Cardi B, she is still a mover and shaker. Very much so topping the charts. But what's interesting now, as we started this conversation, women were making a space, creating lyrics that set them apart. All of that is still true, but they are now topping the charts, dominating Hip Hop today. Aisha, what? What's happening?
Aisha Durham [00:19:09] Yeah, you cannot talk about Hip Hop today, whether you're talking about sales, whether you talking about artistry without talking about women in Hip Hop. Cardi B is one of the top selling Hip Hop artists, period. I think that when we're talking about Hip Hop, if you're talking about branding, if you're talking about creating a media afterlife, what social media itself, all of these things. Cardi B has that savvy associated with her, not to mention her connections with reality TV and these other ventures. So I think what Cardi B does is she provides a blueprint for the ways in which we can understand how women are entering Hip Hop and in some ways entering on their own terms, whether it's through reality TV, whether it's through social media, creating their own space. And I think what Cardi B. Does is that she shows how you can do it on your own terms, in terms of the words that she wants to use, in terms of the body that she wants on display. Even if she says, I'm naked and I'm pregnant and I'm still beautiful. So there is a kind of bodaciousness…I think Cardi B and all of her complexity, she has a kind of authenticity that people adore. And I think that's the kind of realness, if we want to use that nineties term that I think that is picked up with other artists today. In fact, the way that Cardi raps, everybody else raps like Cardi B now. So there are not very many distinctions in terms of the ways in which, whether you're talking about from the Northeast, the Midwest, the very sound, the way the way she puts words together. Her and Nicki Minaj are basically the prototype for the emcees that we might see in commercial Hip Hop today.
Callie Crossley [00:21:00] Queen D, lyrically, how are what women are talking about, women emcees are talking about today different, same, whatever, then? Well, the ones we were talking about when we began this conversation.
Queen D. Scott [00:21:14] I mean, this is my, you know, somewhat depending on what room I'm in, unpopular opinion. So I'll I'll know when this gets uploaded. I don't know what rooms I'm going to be in, whose car I'm going to be in, whose headphones I'm going to be in. But this might be popular and popular. But I would say that one of the things that I've noticed is that has become… we haven't gotten as much range in this current season of music and this current season of women in Music. And I think a lot of that is due to, as Dr. Durham articulated regarding Nicki Minaj, is as people have become considered more of a brand. I mean, we see Nicki Minaj playing into that through her Barbie Pink Friday persona. You know, what works and what sells is what is done again and again and again. And so when you have something that Cardi B went on a rant about it, she said, Well, if y'all don't like what I talk about, there's this art. Is this art, Is this art, Is this artisans? You listed them on alive and say, Go listen to them. Why are you only listening to her? That's how she said it. Why don't you listen to Rapsody, was one of the artists you called out and yet she doesn't do numbers because you say that that's what you want. But I'm on the charts, so, you know, don't don't blame me. I think that's something that we have to really look at what we say our tastes are and what we actually are, you know, putting in our ears and ingesting. I think that that's one thing that I miss personally is just being able to have at my fingertips the range now you have to go searching for the range is not that the range isn't out there, but that you have to go searching for somebody who has a little bit or it has to be recommended to you through somebody who maybe knows your musical tastes like a friend or, you know, you know, a musician you respect or something like that. I think that's one of the things that I'm… I kind of miss being able to quickly find. Now, I have some people that I actually point to and go to their music and my students, they keep me in the know. But yeah, I would say that we're kind of we're very on brand inconsistent with our messaging at this current time.
Callie Crossley [00:23:23] Aisha wrapping up now. What do you see for the future of Hip Hop?
Aisha Durham [00:23:28] I see the way in which we imagine Hip Hop from the beginning as being this diasporic way in which people who are dispossessed or oppressed can use their creative potential to talk about liberation. I think that's what we'll see in the future, and we'll see that in more explicit ways that are diasporic, transnational, that are queer. So I think that we're going to see a multiplicity of voices coming to the table, and we already see that now. But it's going to be something that we're just going to take for granted in the future.
Callie Crossley [00:23:59] Okay. Queen D, The state of women in Hip Hop and the future of the platform.
Queen D. Scott [00:24:02] On the state of the women in the Hip Hop right now, I'm going to agree with Dr. Durham. I think that there's these two different spheres. So I find that there's a lot more of that range and the different expressions of femininity and womanhood that you can find when you're looking for the independent artist. I think that the commercial space is very on brand. That's the way I'm going to say. It is very on brand. And I think that the future of the commercial space is going to continue to be on brand. I think that the quick introduction and then redaction of the first eye wrapper shows that the commercial industry is looking to have more control over what artists are saying in the Hip Hop space, that that didn't start out as a pop artist, but a Hip Hop artist specifically. I think that that speaks to the type of censorship and control over what is being said and what type of art. These are being put out. That is being experimented and talked about in the commercial space. However, I feel that the independent space is going to be where the strength and the future of music really is being held. And I know that with my students, a lot of them are dissatisfied with the state of music. Period. Specifically Hip Hop. And I feel that they are looking more towards the civil rights era and music that actually was the not the soundtrack, but very partnered with movements, partnered with leaders, partnered with people. That is the era of music that they're looking to, to guide them into the type of musicians and producers and artists that they want to be today. So I think that there's a lot of hope for where music is going. Just because I see that my students have a lot of hope as to what it is that they want to do and how they want to use music as a tool to build the future that they want to see.
Callie Crossley [00:25:58] Queen D. Scott, professor, Hip Hop, educator and emcee. Thank you for joining us today.
Queen D. Scott [00:26:03] Thank you for having me.
Callie Crossley [00:26:05] And Dr. Aisha Durham, professor, author and cultural critic. Thank you for being here.
Aisha Durham [00:26:10] Thank you.
BREAK
Callie Crossley [00:26:22] Welcome back to Our Body Politic. I'm Callie Crossley, sitting in for Farai Chideya. This summer, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame made history by finally inducting its first woman rapper into its ranks. The inductee, the one and only Missy Elliott. Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott is the only woman rapper with six platinum albums. She's won four Grammy Awards and received 22 Grammy nominations. In 2019, she was the first woman rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. And in 2021, she got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here to tell us more about Missy Elliott is journalist, editor and cultural expert Brooklyn White. Brooklyn, welcome to Our Body Politic.
Brooklyn White [00:27:11] Thank you so much for having me.
Callie Crossley [00:27:13] Well, let's jump right in. Missy's big break came in 1997 with her solo hit The Rain from her debut album, Super Dupa Fly. What was it about this song that made it stand out from the other Hip Hop songs that year?
Brooklyn White [00:27:28] You know, I think it was the production. It was very playful. It built online and people sample. And, you know, sampling soul songs from the seventies was pretty common. But I think it was just the part of the song that they sampled that really took off. Also, I think that the video, you know, being a surrealist kind of dreamscape, really helped it catapult as well.
Callie Crossley [00:27:50] Well, we can't talk about The Rain without talking about Missy's music videos. The Rain was her first. Wow. But her videos are just as memorable as her songs talked about, about Missy's visual style.
Brooklyn White [00:28:02] Yeah, she's worked with Hype Williams, who is a lauded music director. He also directed the film Belly, and she's also worked with Dave Meyers, who's worked with some of everyone from Missy Alone to Little Simz. So her music videos have always been very futuristic, very playful, again, surrealist. And she never was afraid to break the mold and have a little bit of fun. You know, these videos, they can be they can be a little serious, but hers were always, always playful.
Callie Crossley [00:28:31] And they stood out as a result of that.
Brooklyn White [00:28:32] definitely.
Callie Crossley [00:28:34] Mm hmm. Well, that leads us to a conversation about Missy's fashion, which was very different from other women in Hip Hop in the late 1990s. How has Missy played with fashion in her career?
Brooklyn White [00:28:45] Yeah, she had a brand partnership with Adidas, and even before then, you know, you could kind of see her paying homage to early eighties acts like Run-D.M.C. and Salt-N-Pepa with the tracksuits and the Kangol Caps. So I think fashion has always been one of her playground. I remember seeing her in a purple leather suit, and I think they're like razor blades up and down it. And I mean, if you've seen The Rain video, you've seen her in the acrylic suit that a lot of people think is a trash bag, but it's actually an inflatable acrylic suit that had a hole in it that they would have to inflate, you know, every 20 minutes or so while they were recording the video. So I think fashion was just another one of the many ways that she expressed herself and stood out from what everyone else was doing.
Callie Crossley [00:29:29] Now, when we say very different, we mean, you know, the other videos tended to be fairly sexualized. I would say hers had a kind of androgynous sense to it.
Brooklyn White [00:29:39] I think that that is a kind of a common misconception of Missy's, is that she was androgynous. But if you're listening to her music, you're hearing her talk about men and sex and, you know, everything that women tend to talk about in their music, that's just a larger reflection of their life. As far as her style goes, I remember she did an interview and she was talking about The Rain and the outfit that she wore it, and she was like, you know, I was a larger Black woman and I was everything that they said that you weren't supposed to be when it came to being successful in music. I'm dark skinned. I have short hair. I am larger than the other women. And so she wanted to make herself even bigger. She was like, you know, there's no way that you're going to escape seeing me. And so I thought that was really transformative and just very indicative of her outlook on her body.
Callie Crossley [00:30:25] Hmm. Well, we've talked about a little bit about the kind of avant-garde nature to her music and style, which has always been a part of her work since her first video. Some would describe this as Afrofuturism. Why this vibe? How has she had this vibe through most of her career.
Brooklyn White [00:30:43] You know, I think it's because she wants to push her creativity. When I interviewed her for the cover of Essence magazine over the summer, she said, You know, I was never trying to be different or wild. I just wanted to express myself. So I think that was just one of the many forms that she used to, you know, show us who she was and explore more of herself. She definitely wasn't the first. I mean, you look at George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, LaBelle, you know, they're all wearing these kind of space suits. I think she just brought it to a new audience during a new time and added her own unique spin to it.
Callie Crossley [00:31:17] Now, was the vibe inspired by any of her influences to help her develop her unique style?
Brooklyn White [00:31:24] I'm not sure. I mean, some of her influences as far as music goes. Were The Clark Sisters, definitely Janet Jackson, Madonna, just big 80s acts. And so I think there was an air of extra and like flair and over the top during the time period, you know, you had the big hair, the big earrings. So maybe she was kind of pulling some some inspiration from them as well. But again, I think she just added her own kind of mystique and flair to that just made it feel completely her own.
Callie Crossley [00:31:53] If people don't know, The Clark Sisters are a pretty well known gospel group with a huge sound, a driving sound. So that's interesting because I don't think I would have assumed that that would be part of her influence.
Brooklyn White [00:32:06] Yeah, I mean, you can hear it when she chooses to sing on tracks and she's done backgrounds for artists like Alia, and you can kind of hear the way that she stacks her vocal. It's a bit reminiscent and even some of the artists that she chooses to work with that are singers from Tweet to Nicole Raye, you know, they kind of have that gospel down to them as well. So it comes out. It's just very subtle. And she was an executive producer on The Clark Sisters biopic that came out a couple of years ago.
Callie Crossley [00:32:31] I didn't know that. Wow. You do know everything about her Brooklyn. All right. So after her debut, Missy’s hits just kept coming. Get Your Freak On, Work It, Lose Control. Are there specific songs or moments in Missy's career that you think solidified her as a Hip Hop icon?
Brooklyn White [00:32:51] Yeah, definitely Get Your Freak On,. I mean, that song was everywhere. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing it. The music video was just the same. You know, she I think she takes her head off and she's talking about Halle Berry. I think that song is what made her a Hip Hop icon as well as a pop icon, because, again, it wasn't just the Hip Hop audiences that were taking it in. And it was it was one of those songs that, you know, you hear it at the park, you hear it during wedding receptions. Everybody was getting their freak on. So yeah, I think that was one of the songs that definitely took her to new heights.
Callie Crossley [00:33:22] I just have to mention fast forward many years and First Lady Michelle Obama did a Carpool Karaoke with James Corden, and that's one of the songs she sang. She knew all the words to Get Your Freak On.
Brooklyn White [00:33:34] Exactly. Exactly.
Callie Crossley [00:33:36] All right. So Missy's work wasn't just as an emcee. She's been really influential as a songwriter and producer. Tell us more about Missy’s work behind the scenes. And I just want to emphasize, as as we said in the lead in she won Songwriter of the Year as well.
Brooklyn White [00:33:52] Yeah. I mean she's worked with Aaliyah, Fantasia, who's having a huge moment right now with The Color Purple, and she was one of Jazmine Sullivan's early supporters. Oh, yeah. I think when Jazmine Sullivan won her first Grammy a couple of years ago, Missy was on Twitter and she was like, I told y'all a long time ago that she was that girl. And now y'all see it. It might have taken, you know, ten, 15 years, but you'll see it. She has such a respected regard for singers, and I think that really comes out in the songs that she's able to build for them. But yeah, she's definitely worked with some of everyone, I mean, including Beyonce. She's really worked with the best of the best.
Callie Crossley [00:34:27] Which reminds me that she has a reputation for being hugely collaborative, but that's just part of her being. Talk a little bit about that.
Brooklyn White [00:34:35] Absolutely. Again, when I interviewed her over the summer, she was listing some of the artists that she wants to work with even today. She mentioned Jill Scott, Andre 3000, Erykah Badu. I think she doesn't ever feel like she has to be the only person in the room or, you know, she's the only person that can touch her work. But collaboration is kind of the backbone of her work from her working with Timberland and their close friendship to the fact that she came from a girl group. So I think working with others definitely has has always been a part of who she is and just what she stands for.
Callie Crossley [00:35:07] So Brooklyn, you mentioned that before Missy Elliott went solo she was part of a group. Tell us about Sista.
Brooklyn White [00:35:13] So Missy was singing I don't know if she was rapping at all. She was just purely singing. You can go find some of their videos on YouTube. She has, like, bangs and like, a ponytail and, like, wearing all black and hoodies. It was definitely the early nineties. Like they have one pants leg pulled up. They were closely affiliated with Devante Swing from Jodeci. All kind of living together in one house. And so that's how she met some of her early collaborators, some of the early artists that she's associated with. We're like kind of all cohabitating and she's talked about in these before. She said that it was a really creative, crazy environment, but that also my tie in to, you know, her work as a collaborator and why she's so open to working with other people, because that was her introduction to the game.
Callie Crossley [00:35:57] We talked about Missy's collaborative spirit earlier, and I want to touch on one artist in particular, the late R&B singer Aaliyah. What was that collaboration like between Missy and Aaliyah?
Brooklyn White [00:36:09] Aaliyah, she was preparing her sophomore album, One In A Million, and she was going for a new sound. And Missy and Timbaland, they were kind of the new kids on the block, and they worked together to create this sound that’s still being replicated to this day. You have Normani’s Wild Side, which kind of takes some inspiration from the stuttering drums and One In A Million. They were very close knit. I asked Missy about working with Aaliyah when I got to interview her and she said that she worked very quickly. So I imagine, you know, they weren't in the studio for a very long time. They were just kind of there cranking it out. And the result was this this new this new wave of R&B that had a very Hip Hop style to it, especially in the in the drums that they were using. But with Missy songwriting, it also had like a certain vulnerability that I think helped make Aaliyah sound and her career to new heights. And after One In A Million came out, I believe Brandy, when she was working on her second album as well, wanted to work with Missy and Timberland. She ended up working with Rodney Jerkins instead, which you know, also was hugely influential. But that just goes to show how immediately impactful Missy's work was with Aaliyah.
Callie Crossley [00:37:22] So an important detail about Missy is that she's not from New York or Los Angeles or even Atlanta, where we think of as the hotbeds of Hip Hop. She's from Portsmouth, Virginia. Now, it is true Timbaland was there, Pharrell Williams was there. But what was going on in Virginia Beach to develop these super influential artists? And I want to put another spin on it, if I can, to ask if there's something particularly Southern about her approach to Hip Hop.
Brooklyn White [00:37:54] Yes, she does classify herself as southern and I think to speak more to the Virginia sound. Teddy Riley, who's really known for New Jack Swing, he's from New York, but he came to Virginia Beach, I believe, in the nineties to kind of work on some different projects. So I think Virginia was slowly becoming a hotbed of talent. I believe D'Angelo is from Virginia as well. So there were a myriad of different artists who were either going there or coming there to kind of develop new sounds. And so you get this really explosive, innovative wave of music coming out of the 1990s. And thankfully, Missy Elliott was one of the artists that came from that time period.
Callie Crossley [00:38:33] So Brooklyn, I just watched the Grammys 50th year salute to Hip Hop, and they did something interesting that other programs hadn't done. They very carefully broke down not just genres and eras, but regions. And so if there was a West Coast reason and there was a East Coast region and they had a whole team of people from the South. So again, I say to you, what's the difference that if we're just listening, those of us, and appreciating it from all of the regions? How does Southern standout?
Brooklyn White [00:39:03] Yeah, I think being Southern is its own distinct experience. You know, there's a style of dress associated with being from the South. There's its own slang landmarks. I mean it's like any other region in the sense that there are different modes and different things that just make it its own unique place. And I think the South has its own viewpoint. I think Andre 3000 said it best, the South has something to say. And yeah, I think people should tune in to what Southern artists are saying because it's not going to be the same thing that an artist from New York or California or anywhere is saying and it deserves to be listened to.
Callie Crossley [00:39:41] So now we talked about some of her musical influences. Those are people from everywhere. But the fact that she wasn't in L.A. or in Atlanta or in New York meant that there would grow a kind of innovation in that space, that I'm asking you, My guess is wouldn't have happened had she been in other spaces. I'm not saying she wouldn't have been innovative, but the kind of innovation that she eventually became known for, I wonder what would have happened if she had been in a place that was more easily supportive of Hip Hop?
Brooklyn White [00:40:14] Yeah, I mean, I think if you change anything about Missy Elliot's background, her influences, you change who she is. So I can't even imagine the kind of artist that she would have been had she come from California or, you know, had she come from Maine. So I think her being from Virginia and her having to kind of be be isolated in the sense that, like, you know, Virginia had its own Hip Hop scene, but there weren't Hip Hop superstars necessarily coming out of Virginia just yet, that it kind of made her retool and really refine who she wanted to be and really sharpen it for a world audience.
Callie Crossley [00:40:52] You know, that sense of innovation is so clear. Even when we hear Missy's music today, she was using samples not just from earlier decades, but from other countries and cultures like the Punjabi melody used in Get Your Freak On. Tell us more about this unique sampling that Missy is known for.
Brooklyn White [00:41:09] Yeah, I mean, I know that she worked with Timbaland pretty consistently, and he's someone who draws inspiration from a global stage. You know, I think during that time and in earlier Hip Hop. You know, it was very common to have like a set of samples that you use. You know, everybody was sampling James Brown. Everybody was sampling earlier Hip Hop songs. Everybody was sampling songs from the seventies that really kind of came to a head in the early 2000s with like the sped up soul samples. But I think what they were doing was just kind of looking beyond, you know, what everyone else was doing and digging through the crates for inspiration in a different way than other people were. And it definitely shows that people are always surprised when they figure out what they were sampling. I feel like those Twitter posts that break down Missy and Timbaland samples always go viral because it's so unexpected and you're candy. Like you don't even register it as a sample the first time you hear it. But once you hear it, you know, broken down or slowed down or sped up, you're like, oh my gosh. Like, that is something that I've heard before. Maybe it's something that I've never heard before, but it does have such an appeal to it. So yeah, I think they were extremely groundbreaking in that sense. Hmm.
Callie Crossley [00:42:18] So her music is reaching a new generation. I think part of that has to do with a lot of emphasis on the 50th year of Hip Hop. And so people have had a chance to go back and really reflect on some of the work of the pioneers. How has Missy specifically affected the music and style of Hip Hop artists today?
Brooklyn White [00:42:35] Yeah, I think her use of onomatopoeia, you see that in artists, even like Lil Wayne, who is a huge influence on his own, he's influenced generations. You also see it in people like Tyler the Creator, but then on the R&B side, you know, she's a songwriter, she's a producer. So you have young R&B acts like Flo, who are from the U.K., who are collaborating with her now, and girls like Flyanna Boss who are also collaborating with her there, their rap duo. So I think she has such a vast influence and it's kind of come in waves. You know, she performed at the Super Bowl with Katy Perry some years ago. She released an EP I believe in 2019, and she's just one of those artists whose work is truly ubiquitous. So she's never been one of those artists is like, Oh my gosh, I forgot about her. You know, she's always just kind of been around even when she wasn't producing music on a consistent basis.
Callie Crossley [00:43:29] Now, you know, you got to explain onomatopoeia to a lot of people. So give us some examples of what you mean as it pertains to the songs.
Brooklyn White [00:43:38] Yeah, The Thickka Thicka and the Beep Beep, you know, using using your mouth to make sound. And I think she really helped popularize that. And Lil Wayne was talking about and he was saying that, you know, she influenced him when he was coming up with bling bling, which is, you know, one of the defining words used to describe jewelry even today. But yeah, she definitely was bringing sound and just a new way to express herself and utilize language to Hip Hop.
Callie Crossley [00:44:02] So I'm going to ask you the same question, but very specifically to women in Hip Hop. How has her music affected the music and style of women who are Hip Hop artists today?
Brooklyn White [00:44:14] Yeah, I think she's shown women that you don't have to play by any set of rules at all. You don't have to do what the next girl is doing to be successful. You don't have to sound like anyone. You don't have to dress like anyone. You can take breaks from music and still be successful. I think she's shown women that there is no playbook per se, and there are times where it might have seemed like there was one. But even if there was one, she destroyed it. I mean, she'd ripped it up and throw it into a fire. So, you know, the possibilities are endless. You can be a one woman show. You can produce your own material. You don't have to stay within rap, again she's a songwriter. You can really do whatever you want to do. Your career is yours, and it's your playground.
Callie Crossley [00:44:59] So now you do a lot of writing about Gen Z. I am interested in what is your take on Gen Z's take on Missy Elliott. I can get that they appreciate her place as a path breaker and her legacy overall, but I wonder how they take in what she's done and use some of that in their work.
Brooklyn White [00:45:19] You know, I, I am not going to say that I can speak for the entirety of Gen Z that's.
Callie Crossley [00:45:25] You can’t? Come on Brooklyn.
Brooklyn White [00:45:26] It's very daunting and scary. But I think that they have such a reverence and a respect for her just as a creative overall. And when you think about how difficult it is to be a woman navigating the music industry even today, thinking about what she was doing 20, 25, even 30 years ago when she first started out and all that she had to maneuver through. And the fact that she was able to get through it with humility and grace. I mean, you can't do anything but respect it.
Callie Crossley [00:45:57] Would you pick someone now and say they are the Missy Elliott of their generation?
Brooklyn White [00:46:02] I think Missy Elliott is the Missy Elliott of all generations.
Callie Crossley [00:46:09] So you're not going to tap someone to step up behind her?
Brooklyn White [00:46:13] No, no. I think that would be disrespectful to her. And also, she just can't be duplicated. I think in one of her lyrics. It was, Get Your Freak On. She was saying, Y'all can't copy me. So even if there are people who are inspired by her, she can't be replicated. She has such a fingerprint, that's all her own. So, yeah, there's only Missy.
Callie Crossley [00:46:32] So if you had to say one thing that people most get wrong about Missy or that you would want them to get right, what would it be?
Brooklyn White [00:46:42] I think I touched on a little bit earlier that she wasn't talking about sex in her music. I mean, we spent time talking about Get Your Freak On. She was very open. I think the language that she used might have mastered a little bit. But even still, she has a song called Pussycat. So, I mean, people think that she wasn't talking about, you know, real life and her sex life like she absolutely was. She was talking about dating and breaking up. You know, I break up with him before he dumps me. Yeah. So I think people often think that she always was just you're talking about outer space and things beyond us when she was definitely talking about very grounded everyday things as well.
Callie Crossley [00:47:22] Okay. If somebody is just being introduced to Missy, what's the first song they should go to?
Brooklyn White [00:47:29] Man, I'll say The Rain, because it is a good entry point. But I mean, even from there, there are so many different songs that you're going to find by her. Is that your destined to fall in love with? So yeah, I think The Rain to bring it full circle back to your first question is a great starting point.
Callie Crossley [00:47:48] Who's the next rapper to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Brooklyn White [00:47:53] Oh, well, there are a number of women in rap who are eligible. Queen Latifah is eligible. Lauryn Hill, Roxy Shantay, MC Lyte like Salt-N-Pepa. One of the criteria is that you have to have your first body of work be 25 years or older. So there are a number of women from the eighties and nineties who are now eligible. So I'm curious to see who will be. If I had to bet on it, I would say Queen Latifah or MC Lyte. But we'll just have to wait and see.
Callie Crossley [00:48:25] Brooklyn White journalist, editor and culture expert. Thank you for joining us today.
Brooklyn White [00:48:30] Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Callie Crossley [00:48:37] As we prepare to close the curtain on 2023, we invited our listeners to share how and why Hip Hop has taken center stage in their lives. Here's what Bloomberg News reporter and producer Natasha Abellard had to say.
Natasha Abellard [00:48:52] I love Hip Hop. Both the music and the culture so much. Because it just speaks to me in a way that I honestly don't find anywhere else. The mix of sounds and just the way they're able to awaken so many different senses and take me to all of these places within my imagination is just mind blowing. It's just one of the only. genres that I. Feel so connected to, that I feel, speaks to me, speaks to my ancestors, speaks to just the daily thoughts and feelings that I'm always having but don't know how to articulate. Hip Hop articulates it for me.
Callie Crossley [00:49:35] Music artist manager Rani shared a bit about how she's experienced Hip Hop through the years.
Rani [00:49:41] I remember being exposed to Hip Hop at a very, very young age, and I just remember being so shocked and appalled by some of the lyrics. I started listening to Outkast, Scarface, Jay-Z, Fugees, Tupac, Gang Starr. I mean, the list goes on and on. But the one thing that I could not get away from was how misogynistic it was. And then when I started hearing women rap, Queen Latifah was rapping Missy, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Eve, Trina. Like a lot of gangsta, but a lot of these women, I was like, Wait, we could do this, too, and we saw just as hard. But I think something that we really need to reckon with, which is happening right now is the way that we treat women in Hip Hop. It's a reckoning of ourselves because the music only reflects what's happening in the world and it's a great indicator of where we are in the world.
Callie Crossley [00:50:44] And emcee Devante aka Jiggy, spoke about how expansive Hip Hop culture has been and continues to be.
Devante aka Jiggy [00:50:52] Hip Hop to me first is a culture. The four elements originally is the emceeing, the B-Boying, the graffiti and the turntableism. Over time different influences from all over the world has brought so many different facets to Hip Hop. There's elements of Hip Hop everywhere and to deny its impact on popular culture, that's what it really is. Popular culture nowadays is not like a fad or a trend and said it was in the eighties. The mainstream has pushed forward to now a place where everybody is involved, whether they know it or not. And to not acknowledge that would be a disservice to knowing where it came from, where it's going.
Callie Crossley [00:51:31] Thank you to everyone who called in! Now, we're asking our listeners…How are you seeing the upcoming election impacting your community? What issues are you most interested in? Let us know by leaving us a voicemail at 929-353-7006.
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Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms and Rococo Punch. I’m today’s host Callie Crossley. Farai Chideya, Nina Spensley and Shanta Covington are executive producers.
Emily J. Daly is our senior producer. Bridget McAllister is our booking producer. Andrea Asuaje, Ann Marie Awad, Natyna Bean, Morgan Givens, Emily Ho and Monica Morales-Garcia are our producers. Amelia Schonbek is our fact checker. Our Associate Producer is David Escobar. Our technical director is Mike Garth.
This program is produced with support from the Surdna Foundation, Ford Foundation, Katie McGrath and JJ Abrams Family Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Meadow Fund, Democracy Fund, Heising-Simons Foundation, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Open Society Foundations, The Henry L. Luce Foundation, Compton Foundation, Harnisch Foundation, Pop Culture Collaborative, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.