My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip Hop was both so much fun and also at times difficult to watch. The documentary centered on the history of female MC’s in hip hop, starting from its inception to the time the film was released; this history is told through the legends themselves, like Missy, Salt N Pepa, Eva, etc as well as music producers and other artists.
One thing I’ve learned through this course is that while hip hop still has a lot of work to do to include its women, to ignore their contributions thus far, or their presence in the game from the beginning, would be devastatingly discrediting. Female MCs have been responsible time and time again for bringing something new to the scene and developing new styles- they had to, due to increased pressure on them due to their gender.
One of my favorite parts was to listen to all of the women be inspired by others. Solidarity is key in a dominated field, so it was really interesting to watch each speak of how the others inspired them. Even though the film was told through separate interviews, I would be really interested to see all of these pioneers of MCing in a room together, especially considering the image we have of women attacking women for their successes.
I think the difficult thing occasionally reminded me of Dr. P’s chapter in Graffiti Grrlz, in which some of the graf grrlz denied being feminist or denied their feminity in order to make it in a male dominated subculture. Some of the artists shared the same sentiments on either side of the coin: they either demanded to have the focus on their lyrics and music by not buying into the sex appeal or they utilized their body to help sell themselves as a collective brand. All however, seemed to agree that behind every female MC, there was a man who built and shaped her for the industry.
