Despite being a male-dominated musical genre, women are critical to hip-hop. ESSENCE understands this truth and honors the women of hip-hop at ESSENCE Fest with a series of concerts and panels, including “Who You Calling a B*tch.” This discussion brought together some prominent female voices in hip-hop—specifically Yolanda “Yo-Yo” Whitaker and former video vixen K.D. Aubert in conversation with ESSENCE Ventures’ Chief of Staff, Barkue Tubman-Zawolo.
Yo-Yo is one of the original female emcees of hip-hop. She is a living legend. In the musical genre’s 50th year, the “You Can’t Play With My Yo-Yo” rapper says that hip-hop has been male-dominated for so long, and she loves seeing up-and-coming female rappers having “a seat at the table.”
“I’m inspired to be inspired. They [the new generation of female rappers] encourage me to stay relevant. They push me to the forefront a little bit. And I love seeing artists like Coi Leray pay homage to women who have come before her like she did at the BET Awards, honoring all women on her leather attire.” The legendary rapper continues, “I love to see when they [female rappers] are authentic, when they are selling more than just sex, when they have a personality, when they know how to entertain and when they can give something back.”
K.D. Aubert is an actress and music video model who came into fame during the early aughts. Remember “So Into You” by Fabolous and Tamia? Yep, that was K.D. gracing your screen. As for advice she would give her younger self and the forthcoming generation of video models, Aubert says keep on. “I say keep doing it girl. I’m very proud of the steps that I took.” The Soul Plane actress continues, “All the music videos that I did—I put a lot of thought into it before I accepted the job. All money isn’t good money. I don’t move out of thirst. So I always think about ‘How is this going to catapult into the next level?’
As for Yo-Yo, she says that her confidence as a performer came from living in her truth. The hip-hop veteran wants to see women in hip-hop collaborating instead of competing. “When I first got into the industry, they had one girl to one click.” Despite being a dearth of female rappers during Yo- Yo’s era, many of her contemporaries wanted to see her win. The rapper continues, “MC Lyte, Lady of Rage, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, Salt-N-Pepa, I mean, there’s a lot of women who put their pride aside and didn’t mind sharing their stories. I think it’s so important because one thing we learned is we don’t share stories. We don’t share information. And people are so afraid you can’t even ask a woman what kind of perfume she has on because she doesn’t want you to smell like her. Imagine being within a crew of women where they only allow 10 of you to become successful and you’re asking them about a contract or ‘How much are they paying you?’”
As a “Big sister in hip-hop,” Yo-Yo wants to guide the new generation of female rappers. She offers her loving advice on the ESSENCE Fest main stage. “When I see some of these young girls in interviews, I always say, ‘I wish I could tell them something. I wish I could have two minutes with them and just say, I’m not judging you. I love you, but I want you to know in order to make this work, you cannot be a puppet in this industry. And I don’t mind you doing a coochie rap, but how long are you going to do that? Cause I think it’s over.’” She continues, “We can’t keep talking about Black excellence looking like Black sluts.”
The hip-hop veteran pulls no punches.