Originally published February 5, 2021.

Front Seat

This is what's driving hip-hop this week….

BARDI IS BACK! THE BRONX’S FINEST, Cardi B, released her latest music video and single, “Up,” and it’s another charming, foulmouthed anthem that I plan to keep on repeat. The lyrics are gonna be quoted ad nauseam across social media until the time we get back outside. But she’s not alone. Megan Thee Stallion and Flo Milli also dropped new music videos, for “Cry Baby” and “Roaring 20s,” respectively. And Tierra Whack lit up IG with a freestyle over Ludacris’ “Stand Up.” Think just because Drake, Kendrick and Cole took time off in 2020, the ladies were lucky? Tuh. It might be the other way around. What a time—and week—for Clover Hope’s new book, “The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop”, to arrive. Do the ladies run this mutha? Cop the book to find out (why).

Back Seat

Respect my mind or die from lead shower.

I MET CLOVER HOPE BACK IN 2003, when she and I were first starting out our careers as interns together at Vibe, a magazine we fell in love with for the rich way the staff covered rap: with beautifully designed layouts, featuring gorgeous photos and crisp writing. We were both students at NYU at the time, she was an undergrad and I was a grad student. We dreamed of making our mark inside those pages. I was a walking advertisement for hip-hop in my G-Unit t-shirt, way-too-baggy jeans and Yankee fitted hat tilted atop my head. Clover, on the other hand, was more reserved, but no less dedicated to the culture. And she was deadly with a notebook in her hand. Clover observed everything. I remarked back then, full of unearned gravitas, that she and I would become the new Lola Ogunnaike and Erik Parker; the pair were Vibe’s cover team back then: star writer and editor.

I never got the chance to edit Clover, but our careers followed that trajectory, for the most part. She’s been a star writer with plenty of cover stories under her belt (see Beyoncé’s Vogue cover, #iykyk) and I’ve edited my share of them with other writers. What I have gotten the chance to do is witness her growth up close, from her classic Benzino interview for allhiphop.com (I did the Dave Mays one. Ha!) to countless features she penned for XXL, including the Ludacris one that inspired her book intro.

It’s only natural for Clover to have secured a book deal and particularly on this subject: Women in hip-hop.

“The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop” was released this past week (February 2), and it’s an inspiring, reported piece of work, covering every corner it possibly could, with interviews, as told to’s, sidebars and essays on Lil Kim, Roxanne Shanté, J.J. Fad, Boss, Da Brat, Cardi B, Charli Baltimore, La Chat and Nicki Minaj, among many, many others.

I spoke to Clover over the phone about putting the book together, why Kim is her GOAT, calling Nicki Minaj the modern-day blueprint and how she thinks Yo-Yo could have been a superstar today.

(This conversation has been condensed and edited for the newsletter; for the extended conversation [a really great chat at just over 50 minutes], see the YouTube embed above featuring the audio in full. )

Jayson: OK, so what book did you set out to write? And how did it instead become “The Motherlode” as it's been published?

Clover: That is the perfect first question, because it didn’t start out this expansive. I wanted to do profiles of women, in the most basic sense: more so write-around profiles of at least 50 women. The initial write up on the book (when it was announced) was like 63. And the book I was gonna write was essays on why each woman was impactful. It was just supposed to be essays from my point of view. But I like doing deep dives of things and the more research I did and the more I spoke to the women I realized I was gonna have to actually track down and speak to more women than I originally planned. I started out interviewing Mercedes Ladies, as the first series of interviews and Medusa, and when I talked to them, I was like, I’m getting so much information from them that’s not available, not online, that might exist on page 37 from some 1990 edition of The Source, in some way. I was like, I need to use this information and I need to speak to the women to get these stories. It can’t just be me waxing poetic about why they’re important. I want them to weave their own way into the story and, like, me be the vessel for it. That’s how it changed. I wanted to write about these women and it turned into them writing about themselves. I tried to steer into the direction that they wanted to go in, obviously, without sacrificing (anything).

You’ve been gracious to release three excerpts ahead of the book’s release—on Queen Latifah, Lil Kim and Cardi B—and combined, the arc of them establishes the formative criticisms and breakthroughs for women as rappers, from the binary perception (righteous or selling sex) to the first lady template (with a male calling the shots) to gatekeeper syndrome (and how social media shattering that notion). I wanna touch on all three; first, the idea of the binary and how historically that limited women’s participation as performers. Has that concept been the most detrimental?

That was a conversation I got into through Joan Morgan and how she wrote about it in “When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost.” The thing is that you have to see both examples to introduce that binary. So Lil Kim and Foxy Brown would be the ones to even introduce that binary and introduce that fork in the road. You could go their way or the women before them like Queen Latifah or Salt-N-Pepa, who weren’t bluntly selling sex even though they were very sexy. It’s been limiting. If you want to be a bigger artist, as a woman in rap, it was that direction of Foxy and Kim, having that image. Solé, Lady Luck, Nonchalant — they all talk about it in the book. Lauryn Hill and Missy, maybe, started to introduce different possibilities. Gradually over the years, it was like, Oh, women are different. It felt like that unfolded over so many years in comparison to guys. It took years before Nicki embodied all those things, she was eccentric and weird, sexy and loud and lyrical. She changed everything. It’s like the evolution of man chart but for women in hip-hop. The binary still exists. It’s still hard if you don’t look a certain way to be popular on a large scale. There’s just more shades now. That Tierra Whack, Rico Nasty and Noname can have their own fan bases. Then Megan, Cardi and Saweetie being the new vanguard. And maybe, like, a Young M.A. would be a different type of popularity if she was more like Cardi B. It’s really interesting how this still exists, when it was set up in the ‘90s.

I noticed there wasn’t much ink on Young M.A. in the book. There’s a lot of back history and the book ends with a chapter on The Future. But I’m curious about the choice not to go deep on her uniqueness as an artist.

There was an intentional choice to cut it off at Cardi, because there’s a post Cardi generation cropping up and that’s like volume two of this book, sort of. For you to understand what’s happening now, (this book is) here’s everything leading up to what’s happening now. I was gonna do entries on Lizzo and a few pages on Saweetie. But I wanted to have a definitive ending to this story I was setting up, this volume of women is possible because of everything that’s happened before.

The Lil Kim essay is among the most important in the book, for reasons personal to you (you called Hardcore the perfect album in your Essence interview) and beyond. Karen Good, who you quoted in the piece, said Kim took lumps that later acts wouldn’t have to as a result and you characterize her as a sacrificial lamb, of sorts. Can we get into that and would you say she’s the most important figure in women’s history of hip-hop?

From the beginning of the book, that was my stance. I knew the Lil Kim entry was gonna be the longest. I knew it would be a defining moment in the history of women. For me, she was my seminal artist. I got into hip-hop through DMX, Missy and Salt-N-Pepa. But I was transfixed by Lil Kim. I do think the story of women’s experience in rap, the whole story, could be seen and told through her. The exploitation. Her style, introducing all this luxury into hip-hop in a different way than the guys did. There’s just so many stories happening through her; Black women and imagery, being provocative through music, I felt like she was the turning point. I don’t think it’s sensational to say. For me, she’s the one, the really important figure for women.

You have a great Spotify playlist you put out on Twitter that was informed by your work on the book. It reminded me of so much history I had forgotten over time chasing new records. Like how Nitty Scott is so influenced by Hurricane G, how dope N-Tyce was, and the Katie Got Bandz moment. There’s a lot of talent that never got their due or they were ahead of time: Tink, Kid Sister, Ms. Dynamite, Kreayshawn, etc. Who are some of your favorites that were overlooked? And who do you think would have fared better now?

I think Yo-Yo. I feel like she could have had more records that were huge. She had her first (hit) and then petered out. She could have had more consistently popular records, for that west coast style. Bytches With Problems would probably be dope. I definitely gained an appreciation for Lady of Rage (working on this book). Talking to these women, I could hear their regret or lost potential in their voice at what could have been. I heard that most when I talked to her. She had this opportunity when Death Row was at its height. I could see someone like her flouring now, especially with “Afro Puffs.” Nikki D, I went back, I hadn’t listened to her album, she was the first female rapper signed to Def Jam and it was a dope album.

You argue that Cardi met the right moment as social media was empowering folks and allowed her to bypass gatekeepers. She’s notable in that she’s not a first lady and nor is she a part of a crew. How do you weigh her influence, as it’s still developing? You note she’s an end point. And Nicki you say, with reverence, is the blueprint, as you describe how upon her arrival, the number of female rappers signed to labels was about at an all-time low. It’s their combination in how they rewrote the rules that resulted in the era we’re in. For comparative sake, toward what they did, can you add context to how each of them contributed to The Future, as you dubbed it in the final chapter?

I think people use that meme, so and so walked, so blah blah blah can fly. It’s such a stupid, silly thing. But in a way that’s sort of what’s happening. Like it was years, the early-2000s, when Shawnna, Eve, Trina, Remy Ma were popping, to when Nicki Minaj arrived on the charts. Then after Nicki, it was pretty quickly Azealia Banks, then pretty quickly Cardi B. It was almost like the EKG line, where it was flatline then suddenly life. All three of them are different, but each of them added to the previous blueprint. In succession you can see how they kind of responded to the success of Nicki. Everything moves so fast now and that evolution is a reflection of just how fast things are moving — the fact we could go from Nicki, Azealia, Cardi in just a few years. And then to now have Saweetie, Lizzo, and Megan. It’s really a testament to the speed of social media and them being savvy to use the success of Nicki and taking that. I think they knew the elements and they could also control it so much easier.

What do you make of the current crop: Flo Milli, Erica Banks, Rico Nasty, Noname, Saweetie? Any personal favs?

I do love Flo Milli, just the audacity. And that’s not, obviously, in a bad way. Just really, the salesmanship. I like that about her. I like that a lot of these women are just funny. That’s another way social media has allowed their personality to flourish. Saweetie can put out a clip on TikTok and you can see she’s funny. Humor, I think, is quietly a radical thing for women, just being themselves. Tierra Whack is amazing. I hope she can blow up in a different way, in the same way that Missy did (with her music videos.) And Megan, of course.

At the top I asked you what did you set out to write and how did it become “The Motherlode.” As a bookend to that question to close it out: what changed for you? When you made it through the other side of this reporting and writing, where do you now stand on your view of women in hip-hop and contributions?

I’ve been thinking about that word, contribution. I do think that maybe that’s a limiting word to use. Because it’s more than their contributing to hip-hop. It makes them seem like it’s something they’re not a part of, when they’re creating it. I’m starting to shift to use creators and co-creators of hip-hop. That’s reflected in the sub-title of the book. That’s one thing I want to make sure in how I’m talking about them: that they’re not just in it but the ones that actually move it along.

And finally, what’s your Mount Rushmore of Women in Hip-Hop?

Missy, Kim, Lauryn and MC Sha-Rock.

Trunk

Music, links, podcasts and videos I'm checking for.

• Freddie Gibbs and ScHoolboy Q are twisting up their fingers on the breezy “Gang Signs.” [Listen]

• Moneybagg Yo dropped “Time Today” and I got it for this record. [Listen]

• Polo G is prolly my favorite young upstart and he’s back with “GNF (OKOKOK).” [Listen]

• Pooh Sheist’s Sheisty Season is the project I’m gonna be bumping all weekend. [Listen]

• RIP to the Doloist, Ricky Powell. [Read]

• Complex named their Best Rapper Alive and Best Producer Alive for 2020

• Questlove wins Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for his debut doc, “Summer of Soul.” Shouts Jazzbeezy. Hulu and Searchlight Pictures nabbed the rights. [Read] [Read]

• Def Jam to soundtrack Eddie Murphy’s “Coming 2 America,” which also saw the first trailer go live. [Read] [Watch] (I want more rap labels to curate soundtracks again.)

• Jadakiss teams with NYC’s MTA to be a voice for Covid announcements. Aha! [Read]

• Jean “Motherfucking” Nelson and Gee Roberson partner with Warner Records for their BPG Records label. [Read]

• Nelly and Ali got into a messy spat across social media and radio about their St. Lunatics days. [Read]

• Joe Budden is taking his (podcast) talents to Patreon. [Read] (Am I the only one that gets my eyes crossed on Twitter when I see Joe Biden and think its Joe Budden? Yes? OK.)

• Anthony Saleh talks about his career in management (Nas, Future, etc.) and more on The Paul Rivera Podcast [Listen]

• Funk Flex connected with Gillie and Wallo for Million Dollarz Worth of Game. This was a good listen. Flex even gave Clue his flowers and some scoop about their relationship over the years. [Listen]

• Vic Mensa links with his Chicago brethren, Chance The Rapper, and Wyclef for “Shelter,” the first look from his forthcoming I Tape. [Watch]

• Cardi B goes all the way “Up” in her new vid. [Watch]

• Flo Milli gets her Josephine Baker on in the visual for "Roaring 20s.” [Watch]

• Megan x DaBaby doll it up in the “Cry Baby” vid [Watch]

• Tierra Whack walks over this Luda beat. [Watch]

• Just Blaze says he wasn’t allowed to speak to Jay-Z for a year. [Watch]

• 9th Wonder interviews Bob James in a pinch me moment for the North Carolina producer. [Watch]

• 40 doesn’t speak often, so when he does, we should listen. [Watch]

• The Griselda guys—in separate interviews—made a lot of headlines this week. [Watch] [Watch]

• Pay tribute to Nipsey tonight at 9pm ET/6pm PT by watching the “visual album experience” to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of The Marathon mixtape. [Watch]

Backseat Freestyle is written and produced by Jayson Rodriguez for Smarty Art, Inc. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, feel free to email me: [email protected]. And follow me elsewhere:

Twitter: @jaysonrodriguez

Instagram: @jaysonrodriguez

YouTube: jaysonrodriguez

YouTube: smartyartllc

Podcast: coming soon

Coffee/beer via Venmo: @jaysonrodriguez