It hasn’t always been an easy road to rise up as a female MC in the rap landscape; often, hip hop culture itself has been accused of misogyny. However, hip hop has always been home to strong female trailblazers, lending their voices to the movement and carving out their own destinies on the mic.

We all have women who inspire us – let’s take a look at some of the greatest women in hip hop.

Who Are the Women Who Changed Hip-Hop?

• Cardi B
• Megan Thee Stallion
• Nicki Minaj
• Princess Nokia
• MIA
• Rapsody
• Lizzo
• Tierra Whack
• Iggy Azalea
• Lady Leshurr
• Eve
• Tink
• Stefflon Don
• Lauryn Hill
• Lil’ Kim
• Missy Elliott
• MC Lyte
• Salt-N-Pepa
• Queen Latifah
• Foxy Brown

2000s Female Rappers

• Cardi B
• Megan Thee Stallion
• Nicki Minaj
• Princess Nokia
• MIA
• Rapsody
• Lizzo
• Tierra Whack
• Iggy Azalea
• Lady Leshurr
• Eve
• Tink
• Stefflon Don

Cardi B

Bronx native Cardi B first gained notoriety as a regular on Love & Hip Hop: New York. She released mixtapes Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 before signing with Atlantic Records in early 2017. Her debut studio album, Invasion of Privacy (2018), went straight in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, went gold within 24 hours and was named as the top female rap album of the 2010s by Billboard. It also won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, making Cardi B the only woman to win the award as a solo artist. ‘WAP’, the lead single from her second album, confirmed her position as the female rapper with the most Hot 100 No. 1 singles.

In a recent chat with fellow diva Mariah Carey for Interview Magazine, Cardi reflected on the pressures placed on women in the business, saying, ‘people always have crazy expectations, especially when it comes to female rap. It’s not like it’s a competition, but people are always comparing and comparing and comparing. It’s almost like they want to see you fail.’ As Billboard honoured her as their Woman of the Year in 2020, we think it’s fair to say that Cardi B’s in no danger of failing.

The ‘Bodak Yellow’ video sees Cardi bossing it in Dubai and New York, accompanied by a cheetah…

Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Thee Stallion’s name comes from the Southern term ‘stallion’: a tall woman with long legs and a fit body. And she comes from a line of rappers – her mother, Holly-Wood was also a rapper, and was her daughter’s manager. Her debut studio album, Good News, was released in November 2020, and went straight in at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and at No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums.

Megan is now managed by Jay-Z’s company, Roc Nation and has been listed as one of the Forbes 2020 ’30 under 30′ – plus, in 2020, Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world on their annual list. Her hypersexualised style sees her rapping about her body, and being in control of men. She scored her first No. 1 on the Billboard Rhythmic Songs chart with ‘Hot Girl Summer’, featuring Nicki Minaj. As regards being a Hot Girl, she tweeted that it’s ‘about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident, living YOUR truth, being the life of the party, etc.’

Nicki Minaj

In 2010, Nicki Minaj became the first female solo artist to have seven singles simultaneously charting on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. With Pink Friday, her first solo studio album in 2010, she was certified triple platinum. Despite only six years in the spotlight, she landed on Time‘s ‘100 Most Influential People in the World’ list.

She’s the only woman to be featured on Forbes’ ‘Hip Hop Cash Kings’ list, rising as high as number 4, plus, she’s won six American Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, four Billboard Music Awards and been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards.

Most recently, her feature on the remix of Doja Cat’s ‘Say So’ and her 6ix9ine collaboration ‘Trollz’, both released in 2020, marked her first and second No. 1 singles on the Hot 100, having sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide during her career to date.

‘Anaconda’ been viewed over 900 million times – it might be a bit NSFW (her visuals are as raunchy as her lyrics), but it shows Nicki in full effect, working it as only she can.

Princess Nokia

Destiny Nicole Frasqueri, aka Princess Nokia, is a strong supporter of intersectional feminism and the gay community and she continues to shine a spotlight on colonial history as well.

She really rose to prominence when her album 1992 was revamped by Rough Trade Records and released in 2017 as 1992 Deluxe. The album talks about her journey growing up in the Bronx, her heritage and goth culture. Her 2018 EP, A Girl Cried Red, blends emo and goth culture with trap production.

The video for ‘I Like Him’ has a sci-fi plotline in which Princess Nokia uses virtual reality to find her ideal match, appearing as a cyborg, ordering up men on demand.

MIA

MIA became one of the most talked-about hip hop artists of the 2000s. The British-Sri Lankan’s music brings together elements from hip hop, world music, dance and electronic with political and philosophical commentary. She released her first album in 2005, Arular, and ‘Paper Planes’ from her second album, Kala, reached No. 4 in the Billboard Hot 100. She’s the first person of South Asian descent to be nominated for an Academy Award and a Grammy Award in the same year, and was named one of the defining artists of the decade by Rolling Stone.

‘Bad Girls’ is taken from her fourth studio album, Matangi. In 2012, the NME decided that the Romain Gavras-directed video was ‘the best video of the 21^st Century’ after it won the top prize at the UK Music Video Awards. It’s got a bold, technicolour vibe, and has a political element – taking on Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving.

Rapsody

Rapsody is one of only six females to be nominated for the Grammy’s Best Rap Album (alongside Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, Eve, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea and Cardi B). She bridges the gap between old school female rapper (Queen Latifah features on her track ‘Hatshepsut’) and the newer kids on the block; when it dropped in 2017, Busta Rhymes said her album Laila’s Wisdom was probably the best album he’d heard in the past 10 years.

She’s got a style all her own – there aren’t many other artists who’d sample Herbie Hancock and Phil Collins – and her concept album Eve‘s tracks are each named after an iconic Black woman. Her lyrics cover everything from gender politics to Black women’s bodies, self-determination and the murder of Black men.

Lizzo

She may have appeared to shoot to fame from nowhere, but actually, Lizzo released her debut album Lizzobangers on a Minneapolis indie label back in 2013. You’d have to say Lizzo’s unique, though – she spans not only the hip hop press, but also ClassicFM.com, owing to the fact that she’s a professionally-trained flautist. She stormed the charts with Cuz I Love You in 2019, and was named Time‘s Entertainer of the Year. Not content with that, she boosted beginner flute sales while she was at it. (In an interview with FOX Business, the Flute Center of New York claimed they’d risen by 30%, owing to ‘the Lizzo effect’.)

Her infectious energy and messages of self-love, body positivity and self-care have made her a cultural icon, and her music marks her out as a total one-off, blending hip hop with soul, R&B and funk-pop. Want to feel instantly uplifted? Grab yourself some ‘Juice’ and dance around to Lizzo’s 80s-inspired aerobics workout.

Tierra Whack

For a rapper as super-fast as she’s supa fly (she’s been referred to as the Missy Elliott of her generation), turn to unique star Tierra Whack, whose album Whack World (2018) is full of witty songs that are under a minute long. With inspirations from Dr. Seuss and Sesame Street, her tracks have a cartoony feel, tackling topics like heartbreak with a sharp humour that really cuts through. Whack released each track on Instagram, accompanied by a short film.

Despite The Fader calling her, ‘the poster child of a kind of post-clout-era artist’, she’s hardly under the radar: she was Billboard‘s artist of the year, she made the Forbes 2020 ’30 under 30′ list, and this video for ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ received a Grammy nomination. It’s not the most reassuring depiction of dentistry for anyone with a phobia, but it definitely looks like absolutely no other video on our list, demonstrating Tierra Whack’s one-of-a-kind artistry and worldview.

Iggy Azalea

A white Australian who conquered US hip hop? Yes, it could be done. Azalea’s debut single, ‘Fancy’ saw her become only the fourth solo female rapper to top the Billboard Hot 100. Controversy followed in her wake, owing to Azalea’s appropriation of an accent that clearly wasn’t hers – rapper Jean Grae described it as ‘verbal blackface’. However, Azalea’s view (in a 2013 interview) was, ‘I don’t think the voice makes me fake; it makes me an artist. Voice is my medium. I should have creative rein to do whatever I want with it.’

She released her debut mixtape Ignorant Art in 2011, and her debut studio album was The New Classic in 2014. When it hit the top of the Billboard Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart, Azalea became the first non-American female rapper to reach the top of the chart.

Her videos are often comedic and she’s paid homage to cult films including Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in ‘Work’; Showgirls in ‘Change your Life’ and Kill Bill in ‘Black Widow’.

Lady Leshurr

Birmingham rapper Lady Leshurr may currently be hitting up reality TV (she was on the 2020 series of Celebrity Masterchef, and has most recently been seen learning to skate on ITV’s Dancing on Ice), but she’s widely considered to be one of the most successful female grime artists.

She started writing lyrics from the age of six, and released her first mixtape at fourteen. Best known for her Queen’s Speech series of freestyles (2016), she won a MOBO Award for Best Female Act that year. This video for ‘Queen’s Speech 4’ has clocked up over 62.5 million views and sees Lady L wandering down a fairly deserted road and offering a public service by reminding you to brush your teeth, amongst other things.

Eve

Coming up in the late 90s, you’d know Eve from her platinum buzz cut and paw-print tattoos on her chest. The choirgirl from west Philadelphia originally wanted to be a singer, but joined an all-female group called Dope Girl Posse and switched to rapping. She went to ‘hip hop bootcamp’ when she signed to the Bronx label Ruff Ryders, and her debut album, Let There Be Eve, hit No. 1 in the US in 1999.

Hits such as ‘Let Me Blow Ya Mind’, ‘Who’s That Girl’, ‘Gangsta Lovin” and ‘Tambourine’ earned her a Grammy Award, a BET Award and she’s also had a successful daytime chatshow in the States and appeared in films.

Revisit 2001 with ‘Let Me Blow Ya Mind’, which saw Eve teaming up with Gwen Stefani, and netted the pair a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. This video won the 2001 MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, as the two gals get stuck in at a stuffy club and cause some low-key mayhem before being arrested – then bailed out with a big bag of cash by a mate.

Tink

Tink made a name for herself as a teenager in the early 2010s with numerous mixtapes, leading to a contract with Timbaland’s label. She also featured on tracks by Future Brown, Sleigh Bells, Kelela and Timbaland and collaborated with singer and producer Jeremih on ‘Don’t Tell Nobody’.

Compared to Lauryn Hill, Ms. Jade and Da Brat, her second mixtape, Alter Ego, established her rapping skills, and lyrically, she’s taken on issues such as female empowerment and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Stefflon Don

Stephanie Victoria Allen is one of Britain’s biggest music exports, with nearly 6 billion streams globally and 1.4m subscribers on YouTube. She hit the scene with her debut mixtape, Real Ting, in 2016 and a year later was picked for the BBC’s newcomer list, Sound of 2017. Her breakout single, ‘Hurtin’ Me’, which featured US rapper French Montana, made the top 10 in the UK, and in 2018, she became the first British artist to make the legendary US hip hop magazine XXL‘s Freshman List.

90s Female Rappers

• Lauryn Hill
• Lil’ Kim
• Missy Elliott
• MC Lyte
• Salt-N-Pepa
• Queen Latifah
• Foxy Brown

90s hip hop has been referred to as the genre’s golden age, with style, creativity and innovation by the bucket load. The top female rappers and MCs of the 90s showcased their confidence, sexuality and lyrics.

Lauryn Hill

In terms of female hip hop artists of the 90s, Lauryn Hill became the first female rapper to have a No. 1 Billboard single with ‘Doo Wop (That Thing)’ in 1998. Her iconic album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, won five Grammy Awards, was a global hit, and according to the Guardian, ‘channelled some precious learning for a generation or more of young women, black and white alike; one in which a ferociously talented artist preached self-determination and self-respect, self-knowledge and getting one’s due’ – they also acknowledge it as the ‘foremother’ to Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer.

Lauryn Hill had previously driven the huge hits ‘Killing Me Softly’ and ‘Ready or Not’ with the Fugees on 1996 album The Score, making the trio into global stars – the album has been certified as seven times platinum, with an estimated 22 million copies sold worldwide. In 2020, it was ranked number 134 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Lil’ Kim

Paving the way for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion was the outrageous Lil’ Kim. She began rapping as a teenager, influenced by Diana Ross and fellow hip hop artists such as MC Lyte and The Lady of Rage.

She kick-started her career after meeting The Notorious B.I.G. and joining his group Junior M.A.F.I.A. in 1994. Lil’ Kim’s debut album, Hard Core (1996) was certified double platinum and ‘No Time’, ‘Not Tonight’ and ‘Crush on You’ were all No. 1 rap hits – she’s the only female rapper besides Missy Elliott to have three platinum albums.

The video for ‘Lady Marmalade’ brings together Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, Mya, P!nk and Christina Aguilera in a festival of feathers, fans, sequins, tons of bling and all the glamorous excess of the Moulin Rouge. Not to mention a killer rap from Kim. ‘Why spend mine, when I can spend yours?’ Well, exactly.

Missy Elliott

Missy launched her solo career in 1997 with debut album, Supa Dupa Fly, after a hugely successful career as a producer with her friend Timbaland. She’s now worth approximately $50 million, making her one of the richest female rappers in the world. Nominated 22 times, she’s won four Grammy awards, and sold over 30 million records worldwide; she’s also the first female hip hop artist to have been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Feeling like you’ve lost your fashion mojo after being stuck at home for so long? Channel some Missy and make a vast outfit out of black bin bags and you’re ready to take on the world. ‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ features a quintessentially Missy look – futuristic, OTT and totally unlike anyone else.

MC Lyte

Lana Michelle Moorer, aka MC Lyte, began rapping at 12 and was the first solo female rapper to release a full album. Beyond influencing everyone from Lil’ Kim and Missy Elliott to Lauryn Hill and Eve, MC Lyte also collaborated with Sinead O’Connor, Janet Jackson, Brandy, P. Diddy, Will Smith and Beyoncé.

‘Ruffneck’ earned her the first gold certification by a female solo rap artist and was taken from her 1993 album, Ain’t No Other. The track was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Single – MC Lyte was also the first solo female rapper nominated for a Grammy.

Salt-N-Pepa

Cheryl James (Salt) and Sandra Denton (Pepa) formed their trio toward the beginning of the hip hop movement in 1985. One of the first all-female acts, they were initially accompanied by Latoya Hanson, but she was eventually replaced by Deidra Roper (DJ Spinderella).

‘Push It’ from their first album became a platinum single and earned their first Grammy nomination. Salt-N-Pepa went on to win the 1995 Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for their track ‘None of Your Business’.

The video’s had over 123 million views and sees the three girls in full gold chains, hoops and oversized letterman jackets.

Queen Latifah

Queen Latifah signed with Tommy Boy Records and released her debut album in 1989 at the age of 19. A feminist from the start, she came out of the gate with the hit single ‘Ladies First’ and took a firm stance against misogyny with the Grammy-winning single ‘U.N.I.T.Y’, (from her 1993 album Black Reign), which slapped down the harassment of women.

She was the first female hip hop artist nominated for an Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Matron ‘Mama’ Morton in Chicago) and counts a Grammy, a Golden Globe, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two NAACP Image Awards, and an Emmy – not to mention a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – amongst her haul of accolades.

Foxy Brown

Foxy Brown was discovered at a local talent show by the hitmaking production duo Trackmasters (then working on LL Cool J’s Mr Smith album). Released in 1996 on Def Jam a week after Lil’ Kim’s debut, Foxy Brown’s album, Ill Na Na looped R&B into hip hop, creating a genre-shifting sound. It spawned her highest-charting hit to date, ‘I’ll Be’, featuring none other than Jay-Z.

Her sex-positive image, confidence and lyrics set the standard for future artists such as Missy Elliott, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj. Minaj has said that without Foxy, she ‘may never even have started rapping’ and hailed Foxy as ‘the most influential female rapper.’ Havoc from Mobb Deep revealed that ‘Foxy was always passionate for what she did. She wanted to spit a hot rhyme. She wouldn’t just say anything; the bars had to be real hot. She was a little bit more savvy with her lyrics.’

Need more hip hop history? Check out our dive into the five pillars of hip hop, and listen to our Beat series.

Find out more about the most successful female artists, as you listen to our playlist packed with kick-ass women. Need to license female hip hop music? Discover Lady Sanity and Kelly Mac.

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