FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

We Need to Talk About the Women of UK Hip-Hop

We spoke to the directors of a new documentary that sheds light on the history and feminism of women in British hip-hop, and why their voices often go unheard.
Emma Garland
London, GB

This article originally appeared on Noisey UK.

The term “hip-hop artist” is one that you will rarely find used in reference to British women. When we talk about hip-hop, the main dialogue tends to be skewed towards American men—even the recent commercial interest in grime revolves around male artists more than it does rappers like Little Simz, No-Lay, or Shystie, who continue to be just as active and relevant. Despite being heavily involved from the early 80s (see groups like Wee Papa Girl Rappers, She Rockers, and Clapham’s Cookie Crew) to now, the role of women in UK hip-hop has been overshadowed and their experiences sidelined.

Advertisement

A new documentary called Through the Lens of Hip-Hop: UK Women hopes to change all that. Featuring interviews from a host of women of all ages involved in hip-hop communities across the UK, the documentary aims to highlight and validate women’s voices through personal narratives and reflection. With each of the women speaking on issues of feminism, identity, race, and education, it brings the often obscured but no less present feminist sensibility in UK hip-hop from the margins to the center.

All photos courtesy of the filmmakers

Directed by Silhouette Bushay and Samantha Calliste, Through the Lens of Hip-Hop: UK Women is an entirely self-funded production that falls under the banner of Curved Marginz Visibility Projects, a collaborative project established across a blog, events, and now a film to address the absence of black women’s histories in Britain.

We went along to the screening at the London Feminist Film Festival, which was followed by a panel discussion between the two filmmakers, Nottingham rapper Pariz-1, and Chardine Taylor-Stone, a writer, cultural activist, and drummer in the punk band Big Joanie. When asked what moved them to make the documentary, co-director Samantha Calliste replied: “…We [women] are present, and a part of hip-hop culture, and we articulate ourselves a particular way. So we asked ourselves: where are these women? We know they exist and we know they’ve got something to say.”

Thirsty for more, we caught up with Silhouette and Samantha after the Q&A to find out even more about the UK’s feminist hip-hop culture.

Advertisement

Continues below

Noisey: Hello both. So, what would you say is new or different about the hip-hop scene in the UK now in terms of feminism?
Silhouette: I was a child when hip-hop was born so I can only look at it from that way. I wasn’t in the clubs—I did have access to one or two but I really shouldn’t have been there! Basically, I think now it’s a different stage of the same conversation. You have the mainstream and you have the underground. If you’re talking about the mainstream, then I can’t see what’s happening in terms of feminism, especially if we’re talking in context of the UK. Where are the women? I don’t see them. However, I do think that young people feel that they can express themselves more than they did before. They’ve been given permission, in a way. Whereas before those that did it were considered the rebellious lot.

Samantha: I would agree with that. I was too young to be in the spaces at the beginning, but in terms of now what the spaces certainly said to me while we were out there filming and meeting these young women is that their level of ownership is much bolder. We met a lot of young women that don’t really care about what the mainstream is doing. They’re not interested, because hip-hop belongs to them. That’s theirs, that’s valid, and how they use it is valid. So it really doesn’t matter on a certain level what’s happening in the mainstream for those individuals. I think that’s true of my experience as a young person too. You weren’t looking around for validation to participate.

Advertisement

Would you say that social media has helped the growth of underground hip-hop scenes?
Silhouette: It’s a lot easier for people to break through now because of social media. In terms of the underground, people have always done their own thing. Even back when it was getting a DJ to play your dubplates, that hustle always existed. But now the world’s your oyster at the click of a button. You can create that fanbase or find people interested in what you have to say. So if you’re going to rap about queer communities then you’re going to include a whole lot of people that maybe have the conception that hip-hop is not for them, and that’s massively powerful.

I read a profile on Little Simz recently and she said she got into rap around the age of nine through youth clubs. Through your research, how did you find most people got into hip-hop?
Silhouette: It’s different for everyone. For some people, that’s what they’ve grown up with. My first encounter with hip-hop was in the playground, you know? Someone showed me a particular dance move and it was as simple as that.

Samantha: I think there is something interesting in looking at the UK and the history of provision for young people - spaces where you meet your tribe and create. Those spaces aren’t available now.

How would you describe hip-hop’s relationship with feminism in 2015?
Samantha:Dynamic and complex, but in a very positive way. I think it strengthens feminism. You have to ask yourself a lot of questions, because you love this culture where there are lots of different dialogues about its pitfalls, its strength, its beauty - there’s so much happening in hip-hop that in order to engage with it and label yourself a feminist you’re constantly having to be intersectional in your thinking. If you’re dancing to a track in the club, the music sounds great, right? But it might not be saying things that are not particularly nice about women, so you might have to reflect on that. I think that’s what hip-hop does, it makes you a lot more critical.

Advertisement

Silhouette: There’s theory and there’s real life experience. Hip-hop gets you to take a step back from ideology and idealism and think about what’s actually real. But it’s also about feeling comfortable. Hip-hop can give you a place where you can say to yourself, “I’m not perfect, I’m a human being, and I’m complex,” and you can accept it and be comfortable in that.

I read an article recently that suggested maybe women in UK hip-hop aren’t as visible because they’ve been too busy getting on with their art rather than forcing themselves front and centre like some male and/or American artists. What are your thoughts on that?
Samantha: I find that view problematic. It suggests that success for a woman in hip-hop means being in the mainstream. It depends how you define what makes you successful, what makes your hip-hop or your participation in the culture successful. I think the women that we’ve seen are working hard.

Silhouette: They’re in male spaces as well. It’s about motives. Hip-hop is bigger than the industry - it’s a lifestyle. Some people do it for the love. Yes, I would like to make money and I’d like to make a career out of it, but it’s about weighing that up. I wouldn’t be able to breathe if I couldn’t express myself in this way. I think for the majority of the people, that will resonate more than “I need a deal.”

Samantha: If you go to the Lyrically Challenged event featured in the documentary - that’s organised by all women, it’s in it’s fifth year, the place is always packed. They’re not part of the industry, they’re making mixtapes and bringing the community in, and there’s this whole energy in this space. That’s successful.

Advertisement

The documentary explores hip-hop as music, dance, therapy, a bond between friends and family. Some women talked about it as self-expression, self-discovery, a sort of sorority, or all of the above. But what does hip-hop mean to you both personally?
Samantha: It’s a challenging thing to articulate, because for me it’s more of an emotion than it is a tangible thing. It’s something that’s part of me, part of my life, and I think in lots of ways it has a lot to do with the woman I am today - the way I dress, the way I think, my politics. It enabled me at a young age to talk about things like oppression, racism, that feeling of not being valuable because I was hearing that in the music. It’s like blood. It’s like breathing, which sounds so cliche but I just find it a difficult thing to describe! It’s how I move and what I do.

Silhouette: That really resonates. This is going to sound really like “Oh my god…” but it’s quite etheric. It really is. It’s quite spiritual. There’s a philosophy within hip-hop and all these things that get lost when we talk about it at an industry level. The documentary is in the spirit of that. Although we talk about the industry, because it exists and it is a part of hip-hop whether we like it or not, for me - I am hip-hop, she’s hip-hop, we are hip-hop. You can’t have hip-hop without the people who subscribe to it. That’s what it is. Hip-hop is about people.

And finally, I’d like to pose a question that you asked everyone in the documentary back to you: when did you first fall in love with hip-hop?
Silhouette: Around about 1981/82. I was walking around the playground doing the dance moves, and I fell in love because at that time I felt a part of, whereas before I felt more like an outsider looking in. I grew up on Motown and Lovers Rock and all those sorts of things and that was my point of connection on the playground as well, but in terms of my voice and my politics I was quite rebellious from a very young age. Hip-hop was me breaking away from people telling me this is how you should be and this is what you should do. It gave me life.

Samantha: Although I was hearing it I wasn’t really conscious of it until around ‘86/87. The memories I have are of being in friend’s bedrooms, listening to Station FM, doing dance moves, listening to tracks and writing rhymes. I grew up on an estate and there were always lots of young people outside late, sitting on walls, practising songs, or watching Electric Boogaloo breakdancing - all that sort of thing was happening. It’s really difficult for me to pinpoint a moment but I would say those years, definitely.

For more information and future screenings you can find Through The Lens of Hip-Hop: UK Women on Twitter and Facebook.

Follow Emma on Twitter.