Beats for the Revolution: The World Must Hear the Words of a Sista

 

We did our thing the other day on All Day Play radio with my show Breakdown FM…There is so much good music out there its unbelievable.. No excuses for those who say its lacking…With all the new technology, good music is there for the embracing..

Hundreds of female emcees are out there.. no excuse to say they are not.. From Dessa Darling to Kellee Maize to Vanessa German to Raw G to Aima the Dreamer to Devynity there’s a lot of sisters catching wreck.. One of the things we in Hip Hop must do is see our music as timeless and without limits..The music industry wants us to retire artists and dope jams from 5 or 10 years ago and act like they never existed.. That’s done so that we can develop the mindset of a consumer vs having the mindset of a cultural preserver..The saying Old is New and New is Old applies here.. As we continue celebrating Women’s History Month, enjoy this mix.. Its a gem among gems and our second offering in a 4 part series..

Special shout out to Aisha the Raptivist who gave me some killer drops in the form of speeches and sayings.. Click the link below to go to ADP  and hear the show via our archives  or hit the download links

http://www.alldayplay.fm/episodes/yeee

Playlist:

01-Sweet Honey & the Rock ‘I’m a Woman’
02-Shirley Chisolm and Aisha the Raptivist ‘Speaking Truth to Power  (Menahan Band remix)
03-Kofy Brown ‘Playing Fields’ (rmx)
04-Roxanne Shante Independent Woman
05-Monie Love ‘Detrimentally Stable”
06-Monie Love ‘Swiney Swiney
07-LA Star ‘Fade to Black’
08-Sonya Blade ‘ Blade is the Name’
09-Bahamadia “spontaneity’
10-Mystic ‘Ghetto Bird’
11-Lauryn Hill ‘Lost ones’
12-Hurricane G ‘Whateva’
13-Poetess ‘Simply Poetry’
14-Heather B ‘Glocks Down’
15-Conscious Daughters ‘Come Smooth Come Rude’
16-Queen Latifah ‘Wrath of My Madness’
17-Sweet Tee ‘Its My Beat’
18-Lady of Rage ‘Sure Shot
19-Medusa ‘Fix is the Fiend’
20-Da Brat ‘Give it 2 You’
21-Queen Latifah ‘Just Around the Way’
22-Queen Mother Rage ‘Slipping Into Darkness’
23-Sista Souljah Speaking Truth
24-Aima the Dreamer ‘All you Need’
25-Dessa ‘The Crow’
26-Godesa ‘Social Ills’
27-Vanesa German ‘Two Wings’ (Zion I remix)
28-Jezzy P Ecatapec ‘La Formula’
29-Melina Jones ‘Rock w/ Fire’

Download: Breakdown Fm: Womens Mix Pt. 1

Part 2

01–Laura ‘Piece’ Kelly ‘Sound Awake’
02-Mystic ‘Fatherless Child’
03-Kellee Maize ‘Story of Me’
04-J Ross Parelli ‘Home is Where’
05-Dessa ‘Children’s Work’
06-Desmonda ‘Faulty Fuses’
07-Queen Latifah ‘Nature of a Sister’
08-Devynity ‘Heard em Say’
09-Brigette Gray ‘Shades of Gray’
10-YoYo ‘ Don’t Be No Fool’
11-Medusa ‘Mine to Give’
12-T-Love ‘When You’re Older-Ode to the Picanniny’
13-Kofy Brown ‘Turned Out’
14-Raw G w/ Aima the Dreamer ‘Connexiones Subterraneas’
15-Kemelo ‘Audry Funk
16-Cihualtl Ce ‘Rise Above’
17-Cihualtl Ce ‘Dreamah’
18- Women’s Roundtable’

Download: Breakdown Fm: Womens Mix Pt. 2

Some Dope Hip Hop Videos To Celebrate Int’l Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day and so we went digging to pull out a few Hip Hop videos that speak to empowerment and social justice.. Many of them are all but forgotten so we thought we’d revise some fond memories..  First up is Queen Latifah and Monie Love their classic song Ladies First…

Queen Latifah and Monie Love Ladies First

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLB5bUNAesc

Many forgot about this jam by Salt-N- Pepa which reminds everyone that women are quite capable of doing any and everything under the sun.. We should not place limits on people..

Salt-N-Pepa Ain’t Nothing But a She Thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na3u8S9tF9o

Many forgot that author / activist Sista Souljah teamed up with Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad to do an album.. Her first single Slavery is Back in Effect warned us to be careful with the way society was moving in terms of harsh legilsation being passed. If we’re not careful we may wake up and find that slavery had returned. In this song The Hate That hate Produced, Souljah’s flows over a slamming beat and reminds us that she is not here to make white folks feel comfortable. She’s here to challenge the system. I wish they had a video of the song she did with ice Cube..

Sista Souljah The Hate that hate Produced

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNboHZ3paQ

This is a more recent offering from MC Lyte who has always delivered gems. It features her and DJ Premier. here Lyte is reflective as she speaks to her being more responsible as she gets older and challenging us to set good examples for those who come behind us

MC Lyte The Wonder Years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMhRtxjFY0k

Many of us know X-Clan via Brother J, Paradise and the late Sugar Shaft and Professor X. We forget that they had two dope female emcees who did full length albums.. Isis now known as Linque and Queen Mother Rage were absolutely dope and sadly overshadowed by label politics which led to lousy promotion. The imagery X-Clan put forth was always uplifting, reminding us we are descendents of Kings and Queens.

Isis The Power of Myself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz9sSzt4yvI

Queen Mother Rage Slipping Into Darkness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T85S90nrIH8

Maria Isa out of Minneapolis aka Soto Rico is dope and one of the best around.. I wish she had did a video for this song which pays tribute to Puerto Rican revolutionary Lolita Lebron who fought for Puerto Rican independence

Maria Isa Die Not kill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zScRfVWzXk

Poetic Pilgrimage is a group everyone needs to know.. talk about having dope flows.. My favorite song from them is Freedom.. definition of a Pilgrim is also nice.. I went with this video because of the subject matter, oppression in Palestine, but to be honest damn near anything by them hits..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1orCqZg4SA

This Posse cut called Freedom is from the movie Panther and features everyone from Queen Latifah to Yo Yo to Salt-N-Pepa to patra and many more is classic.. we featured during Black History month and had to revise it again for Women’s History Month

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxyxqVDjSzs

Can you really go wrong with Lauryn Hill, especially when she dropped the landmark album Mis Education of Lauryn Hill?  This is a classic jam

Lauryn Hill Doo-Wop That Thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6QKqFPRZSA

No list would be complete without Missy Elliot... We Run This is one of my favorite joints.. It features Missy dancing while gymnastic champ Dominique Dawson watches.. Missy is always fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2oIhJG7rXA

Lastly X-Clan’s Paradise Gray turned me on to this new joint by Narubi Selah Hookless2 … This is pretty dope..

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxUGjuPQ4A8&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxUGjuPQ4A8&feature=youtu.be

Rollingstone Magazine Fails by Having Only 4 Women featured on its 50 Greatest Hip Hop Song List

This is the time of year a lot of publications put out End of Year and Best of All Time lists. They’re fun to read as they can take you down memory lane or give you some new perspective on things… At this point in time, you understand there will be a certain bias and there may be one or two names tossed in a list to get people talking. You try to take these things with a grain of salt..

The other day Rollingstone Magazine put out a The 50 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All-Times. It’s a list that was compiled from a panel of 33 artists, journalists and industry experts. You have luminaries like Def jam co-founder Rick Rubin, former Source editor James Bernard and legendary A&R Dante Ross. Also in the mix were artists like Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip, Nas, Questlove, Boots Riley of the Coup  and Chuck D of Public Enemy just to name a few..You can peep the entire list of judges HERE

You can peep the entire List of 50 songs HERE

When the list came out I went from panel to panel and and what stood out was the glaring omission of women. In fact we don’t have a female artists being ranked for the first 38 entries. That came in the form of Missy Elliot and her song Get Ur Freak On…Personally I thought Missy who definitely deserves a spot has better songs.

The next entries are Lauryn Hill‘s ‘Lost One’s (45) and Salt-N-Pepa‘s ‘Push It’ (46) . The Greatest Hits list list rounds off at entry 47 where have Funky 4 Plus one More. The ‘one more’ of course is pioneering female emcee Sha Rock..

Initially I wasn’t gonna weigh in on this, but damn in 2012 and you would think at this point in time folks would know better and do better. Its time to expand our mind and make room for other voices, mainly women in our collective thinking. I don’t know what the process was when RS did the final editing, but no one at that magazine looked at that list and asked ‘Where’s MC Lyte’s ‘Cha Cha Cha‘ or ‘Cappuccino‘? Did anyone at RS bother to check out her site Hip Hop Sisters?

No one at RS or on that panel gave a second thought about Queen Latifah‘s ‘Ladies’ First‘ which featured Monie Love and its impact? No one thought about UNITY…No one? Really? Cmon now..

None of the folks at the panel gave a thought about the 33 songs that were released around the whole Roxanne Roxanne saga? Some of those songs were landmark.  They gave birth to artists like; Sparky D, Roxanne Shante and the Real Roxanne.. None of those women were good enough to be included? There was no room for an artist like YoYo? No Lady of Rage‘s Afro Puffs? No love for Mystic’s ‘The Life’? No choice cuts from Foxy Brown, Eve or Lil Kim made the list?? How is our collective thinking so narrow in 2012?

Luther Campbell of the 2Live Crew was among the panel of experts  that Rollingstone assembled. Did he or anyone mention Anquette‘s Janet Reno? Luke in the past has been very clear to talk about how that song which was done by his cousin helped Reno win an election for DA against a lawyer named Jack Thompson. Luke explained that Thompson became enraged as a result of this and wound up coming after 2Live crew for having obscene material. The case against 2Live crew went all the way to the Supreme Ct.. If one record be the source of all that, should it not be on the RS list?

Lauryn Hill

With respect to Lauryn Hill who won more Grammys than many of the artists featured and the experts assembled should’ve been further up the list, like in the top 15 or 20. I would’ve picked Doo Whop (That Thing) which charted on Billboard as number 1 or Everything is Everything..

Considering Rollingstone’s glaring omissions I guess it would be too much to expect them to have even considered a Jean Grae, Bahamadia, Rah Digga, Conscious Daughters or Medusa?

All I can say at this point is to Rollingstone and its panel of experts which included only 2 or 3 women at the most. that was big miss to only have 3 or 4 females on that list of 50 Greatest songs. It was a big miss and just plain wack.. For those who need more info on women making moves.. Here’s playlist I put together earlier this year.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4DA130E1819B4915

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhW_ph0ipp8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cHxydDb7o