Released: 2001
Like well..every game on the planet, rap was a world which was consciously loaded to the disadvantage of women, a way of life and earning where in whatever direction you turned, the opportunities, kudos and dollas were better based mostly on chromosones as opposed to talent.
In some ways it’s landscape had barely changed since the early nineteen-eighties, until the guns, bitches and bling mantra suddenly found itself a clever enemy with a sense of purpose in Missy Elliott, former Swing Mob member and long time collaborator of producer Timbaland. The unexpected success of Elliott’s solo debut Supa Dupa Fly and it’s follow up Da Real World gave the diminutive artist a platform to shout big and just as significantly in her eyes, reclaim the b-word as a positive one for women happy to frame it in their own context.
Three years later, Get Ur Freak On hurtled in from rap’s left field, shaking it’s foundations with an nagging acid bhangra motif and the singer’s own breathless, free flowing rhymes, whoops and switchbacks. So fresh was it that quasi street talk like holla and bling would both rapidly supplant themselves in mainstream pop culture, whilst a track that refused to be categorised would go on to sell over two million copies in the US alone. These were pretty good numbers, even to her male detractors, and twenty plus years later her sister-children are now right there up front, being whatever type of bitch they want to be.
The Voice Of Unreason 
1 Comment
Comments are closed.