Black Feminism and Third-Wave Women's Rap: A Content Analysis, 1996–2003

Abstract

Scholars have argued that women's rap lyrics can be located within a larger black feminist musical tradition whereby race, gender, and sexual politics are discussed in an empowering and self-defining manner. The emergence of third-wave women's rap in the mid-1990s, however, challenged black feminist readings of the music; of particular concern were the messages around black female sexuality and womanhood. To date, no large-scale content analysis has been conducted exclusively on this defining era of women's rap music. In this paper, I analyze the lyrics of third-wave rap songs (n = 259), using the literature on black feminism and black women's musical traditions, as well as third-wave feminism, to guide my analysis. Findings highlight three prominent third-wave rap discourses organized around gender relations, black womanhood, and sexual subjectivity: (1) gender relationships are at once negotiated, contested, disparaged, and revered, (2) alternative models of black female identity and womanhood are portrayed and (3) black female heterosexuality is articulated as autonomous, desiring, and deserving of pleasure and sexual satisfaction. These findings both complement and complicate pervasive narratives dominating black feminist and women's rap scholarship of nearly the last two decades.