Maximum Fun Forum

There is a serious shortcoming in my music collection when it comes to female rappers. Any recommendations?

Nicki Minaj is probably better as a featured guest on other people's songs, but I like her album too.

Jean Grae is supposed to be quite good. All I've heard is her verses on a couple of Talib Kweli songs, but they didn't disprove anything.

Kid Sister is really great.

Frankly, you'd better have The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill already.

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Miseducation is probably the only "essential" hip-hop album made by a female artist.

Obviously Missy Elliott has recorded some of the greatest singles in hip-hop history, but none of her albums is really a listen-straight-through type thing. They're pretty fun, though, and I bet you can get them for a buck or two on Amazon or Half.com.

Bahamadia put out a really nice 90s underground rap type album in the 90s called Kollage that's worth hearing if you like that kind of 90s The Roots vibe.

Jean Gray is indeed a pretty good MC in the Talib Kweli mold (lyrics over everything else), but she's kind of a snooze to me, frankly. I think it's neat that her father is Abdullah Ibrahim pka Dollar Brand, one of my mom's all-time favorite musicians.

Queen Latifah was a great rapper in the context of the late 80s, but I'm not sure what of her work would stand up today.

There's a white lesbian lady out of Detroit whose name I'm forgetting who can rap. That's not very helpful, of course.

I respectfully disagree on Kid Sister.

Yeah, there are basically less vital female hip-hop artists now than ever. Nicky Minaj is pretty much it, and her album wasn't very good.

I must be forgetting people. Missy's definitely my favorite, apparently she's been sick for a few years. I hope she comes back soon, because I think she's one of the most singular and dynamic forces in hip-hop, and a very underrated MC.

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Get some Fugees too. "The Score" is pretty great.

Maybe try Lady Sovereign.

Salt-n-Pepa are lady rappers. I used to rollerblade to their songs at the skate place near me in the early 90's. They were great for that. I still like that Shoop song, but I'm not too sure on any other singles.

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Invincible.

Thanks all!

I listened to Lauryn Hill ten or so years ago. She was popular with the activists I hung around with, but I was way too uptight about music then. I had been a punk kid in a small town, so my exposure to music was limited and always seeking. Rap was almost entirely foreign to me, so I had few means to judge the quality and was way too concerned with liking the 'wrong thing.' I guess it's time for a revisit.

I've actually been listening to the Nikki Minaj album on the basis of her guest appearance on the new Kanye. Some of the tracks I would go so far as to say 'suck shit,' but others are pretty great. Oh, and one nice thing about her, she can actually sing, so when she sings, it's pleasant and not a horrible endurance test as it seems to be with most rappers that delude themselves into thinking they can sing.

That brings up another category: can people recommend good rappers who are also good singers?

That's a tough one. Depends on your definition of "good singer."

Rappers whose singing I like...

1990s Cee-Lo (though more than a verse or chorus can annoy and his recent rock belting drive me crazy.)

Z-Ro (From Houston, very influenced by Scarface in a very good way. Probably the best on this list that hasn't become famous for making awful rock music and collaborating with Santana.)

Devin the Dude (He's only made a couple of full-on singing songs, but he has an immensely charming voice, and he's maybe my favorite rapper ever.)

Missy (also a pretty excellent songwriter and producer - check out Tweet's album, for example)

Erykah Badu (OK, a singer who has rapped a few times... but she was an MC before she was a singer.)

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Also try Kreayshawn, she is rather new and is being pretty well received.

And is horrible.

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Missy Elliot is magnificent. I agree that she doesn't put together albums as strongly as she creates songs but she's still one of my all time top ten musical artists in any genre.

Even though it's six years since her last record I still listen to her - particularly tracks off So Addictive and Under Construction, which to me still feel very fresh - at least once or twice a week. In fact she must be one of my top three most listened to artists of the last decade.

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+1 for Invincible. Her 2009 album Shapeshifters is really great. I haven't heard anything new from her since August of last year when she put out "Detroit Summer/Emergence" which is also way worth your time.

EDIT: Here's the video for Detroit Summer: http://vimeo.com/13995222

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Dessa of Minneapolis's Doomtree is both an excellent female MC and an excellent singer. Also incredibly clever, thoughtful and intelligent.

She put out an album called A Badly Broken Code last year that is 15 tracks of 15 different kind of awesome.http://store.doomtree.net/product/a-badly-broken-code-dessa

Also cool is Doomtree's upcoming homage project, Wugazi (Wu-Tang/Fugazi) : http://wugazi.com

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