Female MCs take the mic in Fly Girls: B-Boys Beware Revenge of the Super Female Rappers, a collection of the ill-est (if not best known) voices of early hip hop.
When New York-bred teenager Tanya Winley dropped her tough-as-nails “Vicious Rap” in 1980, she made musical history by becoming the first female to go on to make a rap record. Thirty years later, this cool double-disc collection gives an overdue shout out to those who have rocked the mic—from Tanya to Missy—with a woman’s touch. Some of the names, like Roxanne Shanté, MC Lyte, and Queen Latifah (who reps with 1989’s supremely confident “Ladies First”) will be familiar, but what makes this anthology way dope is checking out the fly girls who have flown under the radar. Case in point, Dimples D’s 1983 track “Sucker DJs” is a funky-fresh answer to Run DMC’s “Sucker MCs”; Bahamadia’s “Paper Thin” is smartly crafted; and the inclusion of old-school trio Sequence totally rules. Sure, there are some omissions (hello, where is Salt-N-Pepa?), but it’s hard to hate when there’s so much to love.
