When we hear the word rappers, we think of black males; they're what feminists would call hip-hop's unmarked category. This makes tough going for pretenders outside of this category, and it's meant that many of the identities that female comers have carved for themselves—Boss' gangsta bitch, Kim's badass nympho, or, recently, Lil' Mama's lunchroom alpha girl—have registered as one-offs or fads. (We see the same thing with white rappers, whether it's the Beastie Boys' nerdy boogie or Eminem's white-trash horror-core.)

A couple of weeks ago, NPR's Farai Chideya spoke to Spinderella and YoYo about the dearth of female rappers in hip hop. Yo Yo said, "I think that hip-hop has not been allowed to grow up… It's not getting better." As for Spinderella, she mused: "I think women need to really take advantage of the moment — the lack of females that are mainstream right now allows for someone else to come and snatch it up."

Unlike pop or rock, hip-hop has always been the voice of the streets, raw words with an un-Photoshopped, un-censored swagger. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Why should the boys have all the fun? In a spirit of celebration and reminiscence, here are some of my favorite hip-hop tracks with women at the helm:

Salt n Pepa, "Push It"

Yo, yo, yo, yo, baby-pop/Yeah, you come here, gimme a kiss/Better make it fast or else I'm gonna get pissed/Can't you hear the music's pumpin' hard like I wish you would?/Now push it/Push it good/P-push it real good

Monie Love, "Monie In The Middle"

Brother what is with you, you can't take a hint?/I need to shove a splint between your eyes for you to see/You and me were never meant to be/Your homeboy likes me, I like him, too, get out the picture/I get your point but I'm not rolling with the punch/I scrunched up the letter you wrote me in lunch

Missy Elliot, "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

I got my umbrella/My finger waves these days/They fall like Humpty/Chunky/I break up with him before he dump me/To have me? Oh yes you lucky

Lauryn Hill, "Everything Is Everything" (Also "Ready Or Not")

I philosophy/Possibly speak tongues/Beat drum, Abyssinian, street baptist/Rap this in fine linen/From the beginning/My practice extending across the atlas/I begat this/Flippin in the ghetto on a dirty mattress/You cant match this rapper slash actress/More powerful than two Cleopatras/Bomb graffiti on the tomb of Nefertiti

Queen Latifah & Monie Love, "Ladies First"

I break into a lyrical freestyle/Grab the mic, look into the crowd and see smiles/Cause they see a woman standing up on her own two/Sloppy slouching is something I won't do/Some think that we can't flow/Stereotypes, they got to go

MC Lyte, "Ruff Neck"

I need a ruffneck/I need a man that's quick and swift/To put out the spliff and get stiff

Missy Elliott: "Lose Control"

I've got a cute face/Chubby waist/Thick legs in shape/Rump shakin both wayz/Make u do a double take

Lil Kim, "No Matter What They Say"

If I was you I'd hate me too/Louis Vuitton shoes and a whole lot of booze/Every other week a different a dude and other crews/I make offers nobody can refuse/You might even see me on the channel nine news/I get paid just for laying in the shade/To take pictures with a glass of lemonade/My rocks shine like it was dipped in Cascade

Additional tracks: Eve, "Who's That Girl"; M.I.A., "Galang", Bahamadia/Roni Size, "New Forms". Oh, and Trina's couplets in Trick Daddy's "Shut Up".

Feel free to let me know if I've missed anyone.

Ladies! I Can't Hear You! No, Really, I Can't Hear You! [Slate]
Ladies Of Hip Hop Tell Their Side Of The Story [NPR]

• Yet another tale of a creepy pageant mom who spends $600 a month on beauty treatments on her 11-year-old daughter. • A new study shows that women who are already "subfertile" worsen their chances of infertility by drinking coffee. • More weird studies! Adults who were born at a low birth-weight tend to leave the nest later in life. • A father in Georgia killed his 25-year-old daughter after she said she wanted to divorce the husband with whom she had an arranged marriage. • A neighboring town to Gloucester, MA mocked the towns now infamous "pregnancy pact" teens in a July Fourth Horribles parade. • Ew! A woman spent half of her day with a baby bat hiding in her bra before she noticed it. • The family of the woman who died on the floor of the Kings County Hospital psychiatric ER plans to sue the city and call for criminal charges. • Could a gene variant make women more prone to alcoholism through endorphin release? Well, it happened in some lab mice. • Two tween-aged girls are missing from a foster home in California, as is their parent's Lexus. • Violence between romantic partners is common among college students with men most likely to perpetrate sexual violence and women more likely to perpetrate physical violence. • Doctors are planning to introduce a cheaper (and less effective) form of in vitro in Africa, where infertility and a stigma attached to it can be stronger than in the West. • Cute video of the day! My favorite Japanese doggy troublemaker gets more than he bargained for when he tries to play with a pack of 5000 dachshund pups!

'Raising Mya, I taught her that men want sex from the very beginning,' he says. 'Roses and dinner are just a prelude to what's to come — pardon the pun.'

• When Mya's second boyfriend accused her of being spoiled and suburban, she said to herself, "Alright, I'm gonna purchase a gun and start rolling around alone so you can see how real of a bitch I am."
  
• Mya is testing her self-discipline by refraining from having sex with the latest guy in her life, who she's been "talking to" for more than a year.
  
• Last Valentine's Day, Mya flew six hours and rearranged her entire schedule to see a guy who then stood her up, which is more pathetic than anything we have ever done.

• After 50 Cent claimed he had fucked her in a song dissing rapper The Game and Mya called him a homo, saying "I don't know how he would get Lloyd Banks confused with me," 50 Cent approached her at a party and called her "gangsta."
• Mya's creepy stalking of her ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend is the subject of one of her new songs."I became my own private investigator, I found the chick's address, I went riding by. I was calling her cell phone to see if she would be in the background. I had her work number, all of that."
• Mya drinks Choya plum wine.

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