In 1997, rappers Biggie Smalls and Lil Kim poked fun at their famously tumultuous relationship on his song Another. They go back and forth, trading vicious insults concerning each other’s infidelity. One part of the song that is particularly grating is when Lil Kim, a dark-skinned black woman, describes Biggie’s mistress as “black, nasty and mad fat”.
This sentiment is not an anomaly in rap music. Lyrics that disparage darker skin and unambiguous blackness in women are commonplace, and Lil Kim’s bars are just one example of flagrant fatphobia and colourism that has contaminated rap culture for decades, but how does it present itself for black female rappers today?
Colourism is discrimination or prejudice against darker skin tones, predicated on Eurocentric standards of beauty. It disadvantages several spheres of life, including marriage prospects, job opportunities and even the length of jail sentences. Cultural studies scholar and author of Colorism in the Music Industry and the Women It Privileges, Aja Witt, says it “operates interracially and intraracially through overt and hidden action”. Colourism hides in plain sight in the music industry because “it thrives openly.” Lil Kim’s words exemplify this. She belongs to the same category she is degrading, showing colourism’s pervasiveness in influencing how women talk about each other and view themselves, something she has grappled with for decades.
Canadian rapper Haviah Mighty, the first black woman and hip-hop act to win the Polaris Music Prize in 2019, and the first woman to win the Juno Award for Best Rap Album in 2022, can count on one hand the amount of dark-skinned female rappers she saw as a child. Naming Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott and Lil Kim as the most prominent, but always on the fringes of beauty.
“They were always put in the ‘creative, eclectic’ box more than a ‘desirable, attractive’ box. That confused me,” she says. “It also informed me that I am one of them, creating years of insecurity that I’m still trying to break. I look up to these women for breaking barriers for more dark-skinned black women to change this bullshit narrative.”
Looking at the visibility of dark-skinned black women in these spheres, Haviah has a wealth of experience. She acted alongside her sister, and says that colourism absolutely contributed to not getting roles. “I’ve had these experiences since I was very young,” she says. “Auditioning was basically participation, but it would never escalate. It is very obvious that colourism has a huge impact on darker skinned women, especially in anything involving entertainment.”
Rap music first reached the realm of ‘popular music’ in the early-to-mid-nineties, and was overwhelmingly populated by men, both on the mic and behind the scenes. Female rappers were heavily governed by male and mostly white record label executives that decided which traits had mainstream appeal. Most of the time this translated into a slim frame and a lighter skin tone.
“Glorilla is allowed greater leniency to explore being a hardcore rapper than someone who is darker skinned”
This ideal has affected black women across the diaspora. Le Juiice, a French-Ivorian rapper who also runs her own label ‘Trap House’, says the French rap scene is still lagging behind, and only very recently did they start accepting women who look like her. “Growing up, I didn’t see myself represented. It was only after the internet became popular and when I started listening to American music that I felt included. That’s when I saw black women like Missy Elliott, Mary J Blige and Lil Kim.” Upon reflection, this extended to antiblackness, as, “black culture in France was considered ugly and ‘too’ African. People used to make jokes about our braids or natural afros,” she says.
Although Missy Elliott is named by both Haviah and Le Juiice for paving the way for dark-skinned female rappers like themselves, Missy’s path to rap superstardom was incredibly slow for the exact same reason. She was rejected as a frontwoman by a number of record labels because her appearance did not fit into the industry’s beauty standards, relegated to silent songwriter for other artists. It was only after she wrote successful songs for Aaliyah and other artists that she was able to have full creative control over her image and produce her 1997 debut album Supa Dupa Fly.
She once said, “They said I could sing, I could write, but that I looked wrong. That was the lowest thing you could say. I didn’t forget.” She also revealed she wrote the classic song Oops (Oh My) by Tweet about learning to love her darker skin tone. This is recurring and haunts many black women in the music industry. Two of the most popular rappers of the nineties, Foxy Brown and Lauryn Hill, have also written a song together about feeling insecure in their own skin (that never saw the light of day) and have publicly recanted similar tales.
But Another is 25-years-old this year and Foxy Brown’s last album was 15 years ago. Since then, rap music has only grown in popularity. Hip-hop / rap is now the third biggest genre globally, and in Britain, consumption is only expanding. The landscape of the industry has changed drastically, creating a new set of challenges for darker skinned women.
It is abundantly clear, whether intentional or not, that biases on skin tone for women still lean towards whiteness even in rap music, and music video choices illuminate these dynamics.
The power of music videos
AHOO is Le Juiice’s most successful song to date, and she features with four other female rappers. On the set of the music video, while shooting a scene based on Renaissance imagery, Le Juiice says the black women were asked to sit on the floor while a white woman sat on the prop thrones. Le Juiice felt that the imagery would have been racist, and some of the people on set pointed this out.
Luckily this was quickly resolved: the video, which gives black and white artists equal billing, now has nearly 7m views on YouTube, and a darker skinned black woman is seen sitting on the throne, with the other women standing in close proximity. Le Juiice’s experience shows that when skin tone prejudice becomes apparent in her industry, you have two options: either speak up, or be left in the shadows of your lighter skinned peers. Le Juiice advocates brutal honesty, even if it could cause backlash. “When I speak my truth, people say, ‘don’t do that! You’ll be cancelled.’ But I’m not scared. Sometimes people stop me in the street to say thank you, because I speak up for them.”
How women of varying complexions are treated in music videos reveals a great deal about the attitudes towards women in rap culture. In the nineties and noughties, video vixens were central figures, some becoming as recognisable as the male rappers they posed behind. They frequently appeared on the cover of magazines, and even became the subject of songs. Hip-hop critic Brooklyn White wrote that, at the height of the video vixen hysteria, women actually became “the focal point of videos”.
Over the years, dark-skinned black women have become obsolete as vixens. A 2015 study found “the black women present [in music videos] have become increasingly lighter in the last 15 years”, and it is obvious in the lyrics, that contain “preferences for light-skinned Black women and unfavourable messages about dark-skinned Black women”.
The DJ collective videoVEXens offer an interesting explanation for this, saying light skinned women are chosen because of the appeal of ethnic ambiguity. This creates “anonymity, exoticism, and mystery of their image” that is alluring. Although this explains the toxic fetishisation of ‘exotic’ women and their projection of passivity, many videos are about exhibiting an idealised version of reality, or as Brooklyn labels it, “The Black American Dream” – a lifestyle consisting of expensive jewellery, cars, and beautiful women. It is meant to be aspirational, but is actually wholly manufactured and largely unrealistic.
If dark-skinned black female rappers are not seen as desirable enough to play the role of the submissive, scantily-clad woman in a fantasy world, why would we want to see them at the forefront as an artist in their own right? Darker skinned black women are not just rarely seen, they are actively not chosen for music videos because they don’t fit into the dream being sold.
Does the audience really have a say?
Jermaine Dupri, founder of the record label that signed the first solo female rapper to sell a million records, said in 2018 that people do not “jump across the table immediately” to buy albums by dark- skinned women. His comments articulate a harmful cycle; labels are hesitant to sign them because they don’t have widespread interest. As a result, these women lack the opportunities to reach a bigger audience and because they aren’t part of the conversation in the first place. It is self-perpetuating.
At the same time, the increased power of the consumer in determining popularity has changed the rap industry. TikTok and YouTube now launch careers instantaneously, and although virality can be fleeting, it has spurred some very successful musicians. Lots of hit rap songs are now from unsigned artists who spontaneously gained immense traction due to their perceived authenticity.
Two of the most popular rappers in the last year have been Ice Spice, with Munch (Feelin’ U) recorded on a whim in her bedroom, and Glorilla, with F.N.F (Let’s Go) recorded and shot in one day and released the next morning. Their huge surge in interest recently landed them both songs with Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, respectively. None of these four of these women would be considered ‘dark-skinned’ by everyday metrics, and have been lauded for denouncing a heavily commercialised image, but many people have argued colourism gained them success.
Aja believes these women are automatically more privileged because their lighter skin tone offers them “more room to not only navigate the world, but navigate stereotypes.” She adds, “Glorilla is allowed greater leniency to explore being a hardcore rapper than someone who is darker skinned, given she does not immediately face the stereotypes of presenting in a ‘masculine’ way.” Whilst the rise of social media is helpful for female rappers selling music without the backing of a label, especially for “those who don’t fit well with society’s rigid ideals of beauty”, this also comes with its limitations. Signing with a major record label offers “greater exposure, teams of people who know how to market to large audiences, and fewer out-of-pocket costs” for the artist themselves, a major advantage for them.
How black women are challenging this
An organisation that is making a change is P.R.E.T.T.Y. Period, a black women-led collective at the third biggest historically black college, Howard University in Washington D.C. They have made combating colourism one of their core principles. Over 100 university-aged black women of all shades convene regularly to discuss the intricacies of colourism and how it manifests in their daily lives. Current president, Riana Williams, says they prioritise having “open discussions about the consequences of people continuing to spread this virus [colourism] into the world.” They see male rappers as the primary perpetrators, and young boys glorify them and then treat lighter and darker skinned women in accordance to what they hear. Many of their members are consumers of rap music themselves, and have seen “the lack of love for women who look like them affect the self-esteem of our younger women in their teenage years as they are growing into younger adults”.
They are committed to changing social attitudes, and as Pyschology Today has advised, the best way to do this is to “surround black women with supportive networks”. Riana says this is exactly what P.R.E.T.T.Y. Period does, and will soon expand into podcasting “strictly for black women that care for them and caters to them, to give them a sense of community and belonging.”
For Le Juiice, being a dark-skinned female rapper who is vocal about discrimination may feel alienating, but standing up for yourself shouldn’t be something you’re scared of. “There is no love in fear, so you can’t be afraid. You are never alone,” she says. Her sentiment mirrors Haviah’s, who believes self-esteem is paramount for darker skinned female rappers. “It may sound harsh, but you have to come to a place of not giving a fuck what others think about your image or your sound or your style,” she says. “Focus on finding yourself and let others meet you halfway!”
Illustration: Mariella Del Federico