And on it goes! In a completely shocking and surprising to no-one statement made to Andy Cohen the other night, Li'l Kim called Nicki Minaj a stupid hoe. Nicki is said to have responded by pulling Kim's hair and calling her a liar liar pants on fire.
Not that beef between hip hop artists is anything new at all - and it's entirely possible that this one is being fabricated to generate page views - but seeing two female rappers yelling shit at each other across the playground is especially disheartening. Firstly, because hip hop is so male dominated, it's a shame to see two of its (relatively very few) successful women trying to put each other down instead of uniting. And secondly, in a genre that is notorious for shortchanging women, do we really need these two artists insulting each other? What ever happened to sisterhood? It doesn't seem that long ago that bands like TLC and SaltnPepa were singing about camaraderie and self esteem. As far as I know Lauryn Hill found success without any random, generalised but female specific insults. Seriously, what happened to all that?
To be fair, this all seems to be contained to the mainstream level, but that doesn't really answer the question. I think it's clear to anyone who's followed their careers that both Li'l Kim and Nicki Minaj are capable of being extremely thoughtful and well spoken people, and both have talked about the need for empowering women in their music and in their interviews. So what the hell is going on here? Can't we all just get along?
As we all ponder this, I'll let TLC close the post:
