“Nice is phony,” Megan Thee Stallion explained to Ashley Ford in an job interview in our preceding “Fashion Issue.” Megan experienced just debuted her album Traumazine, which is specific about the misogyny she has knowledgeable in the audio business and the pressures women of all ages rappers endure to “make awesome.”
Megan’s message caught with me as we started off planning this challenge. 2023 will mark a fifty percent-century due to the fact the genesis of hip-hop in 1973 at an finish-of-summer season bash in the Bronx. Currently, hip-hop is not just a songs style but a lifestyle. It has impacted the way we chat and the traits we observe. And while the women of all ages of hip-hop have extended felt unappreciated and experienced to operate at least two times as hard as males to crack as a result of, they are frequently hip-hop’s trailblazers: the trend icons, the storytellers, the kinds continually advancing what hip-hop can be. They also, last but not least, luckily, appear to be to be obtaining the regard and recognition they have repeatedly been denied. All calendar year long, the Lower will be celebrating the girls who have changed the game — starting off with this problem.
Very last summer, you couldn’t go any place without having hearing “F.N.F. (Let us Go),” by 23-yr-aged Memphis native GloRilla. There isn’t a line in hip-hop that delivers me far more pleasure than “Outside hanging out the window with my ratchet-ass buddies.” GloRilla, who manufactured a lot of calendar year-end lists in 2022 and is now nominated for a Grammy, has gained her location between rap’s ratchet queens in a lineage that traces from Lil’ Kim to Nicki Minaj to Cardi B. More, in the magazine you are going to see an intimate portfolio of Ice Spice, the ascendant powerhouse rapper from the Bronx whose SpongeBob SquarePants–inspired monitor “Bikini Bottom” opens with the legendary line “How can I get rid of if I’m now chose?”
The two GloRilla and Ice Spice are part of hip-hop’s evolution: girls with a major dose of swagger, villain-period-deserving lyrics, and no apologies in sight. Their fearless strategy to daily life is as infectious as their rhymes, and looking at them, you can understand a factor or two about being aware of your worthy of and inquiring for your owing. That they’ve arrived in the highlight with their swagger intact is in no little element many thanks to the gals of hip-hop who paved the way. As our celebration proceeds more than the coming months, we appear forward to telling their tales.
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