Ladies First: A Story of Women in Hip-Hop (Part 1)

Speaker: 00:00:40

DynoWright

Together will explore some of the larger societal issues raised in these films. You've seen today's movie before, and you'll learn some fascinating trivia you might have missed if you haven't seen today's movie before. And we'll help you decide whether this film is worth your time. Either way, maybe a smarter hip hop fan by the end of this episode.

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DynoWright

on the Smokin Grooves tour in: 2002

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JB

I'm JB. Eighties and nineties, Nostalgia junkie, longtime hip hop fan and I currently have a Tribe Called Quest Anthology City in my Honda Civic CD player.

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Boogie

I’m Boogie, a DJ and longtime hip hop fan. I remember when just about every poster in my bedroom was a Salt-n-Pepa one. True story. They were all over my room.

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DynoWright

In this episode, we'll answer the question Who were the true OG women in hip hop.

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Rapper

One, one, one, one...

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JB

ladies first. The story of women in hip hop is a TV documentary series about the origins and evolution of women, hip hop stars and their influence on pop culture. It premiered on Netflix on August 9th, 20, 23.

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JB

All right. So let's dig into it. Based on this episode, who do you think were the true OG women in the hip hop game and why? Which ones were discussed and what was their legacy? Boogie You want to kick us off?

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Boogie

Yeah. I mean, the first one I got to give my props. So the Queen Sharrock of the 44 plus one, she's the first female rapper. First credit female rapper. And she was shot on the Sugarhill Records. Got the queen rock scene, Shorty. Just ultimate battle rapper, Just battle tested and just lyrics off the top of her head. She just unprecedented out her time at such a young age then got sort of the new wave song Pepper in she like I think was just a soldier.

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Boogie

ence, and they were formed in: 1979

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Boogie

But she went by and she'd be on a few of them when she was interviewed. When she started off seeing the hook to it, one of the songs, one of my favorite all time favorite songs by sequence. Funky World. But yeah, I'll start off with those ones right there.

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JB

Yeah, definitely. Sharrock, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah's The Soldier. What I like to is that, oh, another one dimension. Sylvia Robinson I didn't really know her name well. She was a legend, unfortunately has passed some years back, but she founded the Sugarhill Gang and kind of was the executive behind Sugarhill Records like Major Player in the early days of hip hop.

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JB

Behind the scenes, she was a legend.

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DynoWright

It really needs to be a whole documentary series about Sylvia Robinson.

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Boogie

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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JB

Yeah. Diana Wright Anything else to add about legends? I think Boogie kind of covered it, like with the OGs here.

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DynoWright

You know, between Rock and Rocks and Ashanti and Queen Latifah. I give a lot of credit to Queen Latifah, for sure. And we will see more of Queen Latifah in this series. But what I want to shout out that wasn't mentioned was Lady B from Philly. First woman to have a rap record, play on the radio to the beat, y'all not mentioned in in the series, but also very important as far as O.G. women in hip hop.

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DynoWright

So shout out to Lady B still on the radio.

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Boogie

Yes.

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DynoWright

I care. On the drive home. Yes, she said she she was her and a deejay touched down. Shout out the touch tone she touched.

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JB

Oh, man. People are not going to know what a touchtone phone is. The younger generation of youth. So if we just reference back to an episode we did when we watched the Roxanne Roxanne Netflix movie several months back, she came out of Queensbridge, like how she was so young when she burst on the scene like age 13 or 14.

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JB

We cover that. What I learned is that she was inspired by Nipsey Russell. I don't even know if they mentioned it in in that documentary film.

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DynoWright

I don't recall. That was something that was.

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JB

Kind of thing that Nipsey Russell was known for his lexicon and for always rhyming. And she's like, I like his style. I like, you know, I could do that. You know, I want to make a living at doing that. And then her mother would challenge her and she would beat everybody in sight at the rap battles. And pretty much she invented the diss track.

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JB

She took out all the men down and she took them down pretty much. There was another woman that was prominently featured, April Walker, the fashion mogul, too, that designed a lot of the the clothing and style for these ladies.

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Boogie

Yeah. Every following every walk for every fall. April Walker since had an count. Yeah.

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JB

She had her own line of clothing that was big.

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Boogie

Yeah. She started off like she was one of the original designers back in the day. Like, you know, the spray paint and the tagging of the clothing, just to give it an original flavor and flair. In the documentary, you showed a lot of pictures of her when she was really young, hanging out with people backstage and in the I guess it was, I guess, the one where they were all doing a lot of designs on clothes.

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Boogie

And she was working on designs for patterns, on clothes. I said, Wow, that's like, Wow. So I followed her to this day and yeah, she's she's still the ball.

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JB

What I liked about this episode also is that they showed a lot of the modern day female hip hop stars and who they were inspired by, which was it was kind of neat to see. So one that I saw Rapsody, who's from North Carolina, she's one of the first ones from way out in the countryside, and she was inspired by Missy like like she gives a mad props to emulate for her style and her lyricism, like this intelligent rap and M.C. like, it was a great story to kind of show to her upbringing in Brooklyn.

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JB

And she grew up around a lot of folks in the West Indies went to an African school, and she herself was inspired by Sharrock, as well as salt and pepper showstoppers. So there's a whole cycle of influence, which is kind of neat to see. Yeah. You guys also take note of some of the other more modern female hip hop stars and who they were influenced by.

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Boogie

Yeah, there's a there's quite a few that they mentioned. You see, you had Rob Digga, Remy Ma Rudiger's Loku. I see her all the time. Mm hmm. Yeah, she was with The Outsiders. Also cycle with Busta Rhymes with his label for a little while. She's got a few hits out. She's still pretty active. She's actually I think she's maybe on tour right now.

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Boogie

Matter of fact, very much she's another lyrical. She's just lyrics. She's a terror squad. The Fat Joe. And yeah, she's still tearing it up right now. Then it has some of the lato coil array of coil array, actually, by the way, we pick out a lot of hits on radio right now. But yeah, those there's a few others that I saw.

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Boogie

They missed some of them I wasn't as familiar with Castrol and Kerouac. Yeah, Castrol from Detroit. Interesting story with her though. She started off as a stripper and then went from dancing to actually rapping on stage. And that way that's the way to use your platform there.

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DynoWright

Really has people's attention.

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Boogie

Literally, right? Yeah. She got so sure. And she said, Oh, you have to strip market, just rap it. I still make the same amount of money. And I was like, Well, props you for realizing that you know your worth. And I think that's the way to turn it around, which was actually with the I mean, I'm very measured as much more.

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Boogie

Cardi B had a similar story as well with to dance and she got to reality TV used that platform to start pushing her to get a follow to push her music out. So I mean, women have a struggle, but it's good to see that you can take that struggle to make some positive out of it. The Tierra Whack.

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Boogie

I like her story to She's from Philly. More Philly?

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JB

Yep.

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Boogie

Mm hmm. I haven't heard of her, though, but where I heard her, saw her click away. She's not bad at all by having chicks in her stuff.

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JB

So if you look up some of her videos, I started going down that rabbit hole and you could see the influence of, like, Missy Elliott, some of her videos. And there's one where she's like a chef or something. And there's like, these potatoes are popping out like eyeballs. And then she she's looking all distorted and stuff. And you could definitely see a callback to Missy Elliott's creativity.

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JB

I think towards the end of the episode, they showed how Missy Elliott.

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Boogie

Was just.

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JB

Crazy creative and opened the doors for the likes of Kerouac and Saweetie Saweetie I'm saying that right? 3D.

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Boogie

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Missy Elliott is just. She just. She's in a class all by herself. Yeah. Yeah. There's only a few that I can even put close to her as far as talent and abilities are concerned. Because not only is she a rapper, she sings, she produces everything she thinks to the full gamut. She is living, breathing, hip hop.

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Boogie

That's her. She's hip hop personified. Like everything about her. Just it's just hip hop. I heard her, her originality, her fashion, everything. She's just man, she's just a she's a gem. She's like a one in a one in a million talent.

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JB

Yeah. I mean, before she came around, women weren't kind of portraying themselves as superheroes. And she did that. And then, you know, she did the thing about body image where she's like, I put me in a hefty bag and inflate it all up. And that became a huge thing. And then all the vibrant colors and like the fisheye or more white lenses and just like in your face with the crazy hooks and hypnotize thing, video was just outrageous.

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DynoWright

I think her moment and at least her teaming up with hype. Williams, like, really made a moment like, it's just so indelible, your brain, like the whole epic Williams kind of thing.

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JB

Oh yeah, Yeah, yeah. Another thing in the circle, I call it like the circle of hip hop and the influence I saw that Foxy Brown, who had many moments. Hip hop. She loved Roxanne Shante. Mm hmm. And we saw in the documentary Roxanne grew up in Queensbridge. And when Nas was a very impressionable young boy, you know, she influenced him.

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JB

Roxanne also paved the way for the likes of, like, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj being vocal and not afraid to discuss and stand up for herself. So it's it's just incredible to see how they're all interconnected in, you know, influences for each other.

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Boogie

Well, one thing that I also love, too, is how taken Queen Latifah was was was talking about how she was breaking into the game show, how she used to sneak over to New York to the Latin Quarter. But she was she wasn't sure she wanted to identify herself as an artist. She wanted to look different. She didn't want to be like emcee like or Salt-N-Pepa.

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Boogie

They had their own images already. So she basically just said, you know what, I'll take you back to to Africa. You know, she's like, I'm queen. So she started wearing a kufi on her head like a crown and wearing African patterns to express herself. And that was that was cool because she she had her own name. And that was that was the cool thing about early the early seeds of hip hop was that, you know, people, men and women, when they wanted to break into the scene, they wanted to create their own lane.

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Boogie

They wanted to have their own image. They wanted to represent where they were from borough wise, but they also wanted to be distinct from who was it, whoever was out there already. And that was good that they may make sure that she she mentioned that even when she first met a woman. We love him. You heard and we loves it.

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Boogie

Hey, you know, I won't put you on my track. And he collaborated on my lady's first video. The imagery in that video was powerful. And I remember that the government, the very first time I saw that video, I was like, Oh my God, what is this? Because of the way that she commanded the mic and the aggressive and as you say, aggressive assertiveness of her image.

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Boogie

She just was powerful. And I'm like, wow, she's coming across like she is a queen. And even when they show and I guess the women in Strategy Room and we a map of Africa with the different chess pieces on displaying to Africa with is injustice rule or apartheid apartheid throughout the region and they were trying to take over, you know, which area we want to take over next and then put the fist there, you know, displaying that they were liberating that area.

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Boogie

I was like, wow, that's just powerful image. Before that term, she was well ahead of her time with that. And I'll never forget the first time I saw that video. So when she starts talking about, I'm like, Oh my God, yes, yes, yes.

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DynoWright

It really is a terrific video. It's so good. It's yeah, it's that declaration of power. It's so, so powerful. Yeah. Had that same effect on me too.

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Boogie

Yeah. Trish.

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JB

Yeah. And her style, like you says, Afrocentric. And she would wear the kufi and she started the whole trend of Afro centrism where a lot of artists and she was part of the Native Tongue collective, which included De La Soul, Monie Love, Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Black Sheep Leaders, The New School. So they would wear a lot of the colors of Africa, the black, green, yellow and red.

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JB

And they would have the map of Africa and man, that was so popular back in the late eighties and early nineties, like even at college, you would see, you know, people selling all those, you see like hacky sacks in those colors. You could see flags and banners. And it was it was nice to see like that representation. And to this day, you know, people are, you know, wearing colors of their, their native countries and heritages and stuff like that.

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JB

Like it's kind of like they were like ahead of their time with that with that type of expression. So was there anything else that was interesting that you learned from this episode, one of the series? You're like, Wow, I don't remember seeing that or something caught your eye, either one of you guys.

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Boogie

Yeah, I didn't realize that I didn't realize a Shahrukh was a B girl before she started emceeing like she was a B girl. I mean, short clips of her. I'm like, Wow, that it's like sharp rocks. Another one to this day, I, I still found work. And I never knew that she was a big girl before she started singing.

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Boogie

I remember know. No, I she was one of the first emcees period, but the first female credited rapper that was song, but I didn't know she was a B girl. I was like, That was. That was a nice, interesting fact right there. You know what.

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DynoWright

I really enjoyed? Look at some of this archival footage like Richard Belzer shove clip right over like, whoa, I never saw that for the late great Richard Belzer.

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JB

And seen him in a world.

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DynoWright

There was a theme that that was also referenced in on the come up that we also reviewed about finding your voice as a young emcee, and especially for women who were rappers, finding her voice as a young woman emcee. You saw that with Emcee Light and somebody pretty much all the other ones. But it was interesting to see, you know, real life outcomes of this story as opposed to on the come a version of it fictionalized one.

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DynoWright

So it's good kind of a comparison.

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Boogie

Right?

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JB

Yeah. And just a hint that what we will discuss in as we cover episodes two, three or four, not to get too much into it, but you'll see a lot of what these women were up against, the massive amounts of misogyny that you see in the rap game and society at large, the double standard men versus women exploitation, a lot of that stuff.

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JB

So this is just kind of back story, some of the character development, so to speak, in this one. But then you really get into those issues in the upcoming episodes. One other piece of historical footage that was interesting is that you saw Sister Soldier. She was part of the Public Enemy and was very outspoken and how she was kind of denounced by Bill Clinton.

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JB

And it was like that just to placate the Republican voters to kind of swing maybe some of them over, to say, listen, I'm anti against like this radical activist, so to speak, a black female who's being very outspoken. And that meanwhile, you saw there's the iconic image of Bill Clinton playing saxophone on our city hall show. And he had a lot of following, like in the black community.

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JB

But then, like kind of as it got closer to the election, kind of shifted gears a little bit and it was almost like seen as a political move to try to sway some of the right wing to his side. And that soured some people on Bill Clinton a little bit. She was she was she felt she was singled out and she kind of spoke out about that.

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JB

There was a bit of controversy.

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Boogie

And I think the whole thing with her, too, was that her statement was taken completely out of context. She was just basically trying to show how absurd it would be if, you know, black people decided to have a they had to kill white people. She wasn't saying that black people should have any clue why She's saying it's absurd if black people decide to do this.

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Boogie

So why do some people think that it's okay to kill black people? And it was just completely just took out of context. I remember when that happened. Who and I was like, Wow, that's not what she said. Yeah.

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JB

Yeah. What I like what they did is they kind of fast forwarded to like the Obama era and how, you know, she invited a lot of both male and female hip hop luminaries to the White House and asked for their opinion on very important topics. So you see M.C. Light was invited and Queen Latifah and I was he was trying to scan the room.

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JB

D.J Khalid was there and several others.

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DynoWright

So he's always there.

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Boogie

Would say the best heat of.

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DynoWright

I.

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JB

Had another one and another while these he's everywhere but and it was kind of neat to see like how far we've come where hip hop was such like a lightning rod. It's like, oh no, you know, you have these types of people, like, these are the riffraff that people, you know, they have radical ideas, like there goes the neighborhood.

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JB

And then, you know, fast forward now it's like what I saw at the end there, which was this was the craziest thing, too, is that how wild was it to see Cardi B speaking with Bernie Sanders? And she was ranked as like a top 25 political influencer, Cardi B Yeah, well people, yeah. What, you think you just people would stereotype her?

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JB

Oh, see, she's she's shallow and she's just, you know, it using her sex appeal and dirty lyrics or whatever. And it's like, wait a second, people are listening. The young is listening to her and she she has a voice and you know, she can make a statement.

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Boogie

Yeah. Hip hop has always been hip hop was born in the struggle was always been the voice of the underrepresented. And it's great that people know now like that there is a voice to be heard because hip hop's everywhere. It's everywhere. And if you really want to get a point across to a large group of people, you all you gotta do is ask to as to artists, you know, everyone's that out in the front line, everyone's that came up from the, you know, from a struggle to become famous.

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Boogie

Biggie wrote those lyrics in: 1994

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Boogie

You know, and it's a good thing to see that the voices are definitely being heard. And, you know, you just got to keep pushing forward. We can't be a political pundit and advocate. I mean, she she definitely has an opinion on anything. You ask if she has an opinion tonight. It's cool. That's cool.

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JB

Yeah. Like you said, hip hop was born out of the struggle for equality, for equal rights, for out of oppression. And if you watch the PBS series Fight the Power that Chuck D had produced, you'll you'll see a great history lesson on the origins of hip hop. I One of the thing I didn't really remember the first song that M.C. came out with I Kramm to Understand You, that was about crack and.

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Boogie

I remember that just that just just like the fact that I created to understand you.

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JB

ike, well, light as a rock in: 1988

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Boogie

Yeah. Yeah. I still have that album later. Yeah, I love MTV. She's one of my top lyricist, period.

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JB

Oh, yeah.

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Boogie

Her delivery's is raw. I loved her. The tone of her voice.

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JB

Yeah, it's got a little bit of raspy this to it.

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DynoWright

It's a great track to love paper thin.

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Boogie

Okay. Breathin is my doing so good. Oh, we. Yes, I keep it going on a loop. Just let it go.

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JB

I had a couple of hers on cassette. I remember that cappuccino song. Why? Oh, why would I do cappuccino? Cappuccino? She can make anything sound cool. I was like, Yeah, who is this? That was like late eighties and I got to see MC Lyte and and Queen Latifah at the Rock the Bells Festival last month, which was awesome.

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JB

And Roxanne Shante was introducing a lot of the acts as well. But yeah, I mean, the acts today, women are having a moment and, you know, we'll get into that. But I mean, women are dominating really the airwaves. And Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, but then all these other ones that you mentioned and some of them I'm just learning cash on and I don't know if they mentioned Ice Spice at all, but she's all the rage these days to Ice Spice.

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Boogie

Yeah.

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JB

She collaborated with Taylor Swift on a song recently. Did like a remix version. Yeah.

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Boogie

Yeah. I space out of the Bronx. I believe.

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JB

She's. I think so.

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Boogie

The I mean, Megan thee stallion. Yeah, she's she's she's she's good. I think I like her flow.

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JB

Yeah.

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Boogie

Maxwell The song that place, that song song's all over that way. Airwaves. Then she hit that BBC Put that put your hands over Oscar C track to it. They went even further somewhere. Sort of got Busta Rhymes attention. He ended up doing a verse on it. So we had a remix and then a remix on a remix remix.

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Boogie

They just mentioned it to me. Selling designer is actually Diddy's X she did fashion design for. She actually wanted Missy's designers, Mary J. Blige designer. She design for ABC and she design for little Kim, that infamous one breast of Alpha that little Kim were.

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DynoWright

Yes, is.

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Boogie

My job So right quick shot up the music Hill.

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JB

Yeah, I had a note on that one. I think that was in episode three, but we'll get to that. And also Drew Dixon, we got to get into later on. Jackson worked at Def Jam and the brainchild behind All I Need.

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DynoWright

Yeah, she gets a lot more attention in episode three. Yeah. Yep.

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JB

Definitely. Yeah. This is a great series. Enjoy watching it.

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DynoWright

Yeah, it's great for any hip hop fan. Doesn't have to be a fan of women rappers, but yeah, like you said, more meat on the bone coming.

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Boogie

Mm. Yes, yes. If you've got an appetite for hip hop, we got the recipe. Pretty good.

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DynoWright

Hip hop movie club is produced by your Hhn sees JB Boogie and Dino Wright theme music by Boogie Rager. Check us out on Facebook and Instagram at Hip Hop Movie Club.

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Boogie

Ragan promo.

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DynoWright

On the next episode of the Hip Hop Movie Club podcast, your agency's review episodes two, three and four of ladies. First, the story of women in hip hop. You'll have a special guest or two, so stay tuned to this feed or our social media. It drops in two weeks. Subscribe now and your favorite podcast app and you won't miss it.

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DynoWright

Shout out to your listeners and thanks for listening.

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JB

And remember, don't hate, aggregate.

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Boogie

Aggregate, aggregate.