How The Girls Of Rap Have Lost It…And Lost Their Touch

You’re not only thrown into a cage crowded with feral male rappers who will do anything and spit anything to remain at the top of the food chain,you’re surrounded by all manner of walls – From a hostile media to marauding male producers to unscrupulous promoters, shoddy managers, gluttonous handlers and very steep recording fees.
It’s a ride that’s never easy –  not just for the female but also the male rappers.
Kenya’s music industry is still crawling and lumbering up the path as it lacks an element of professionalism and proper channeling that is required of an industry that rakes in billions of Shillings annually.
Here, most artists edge it out on their own ; it’s pretty much a one man show that means that the artist gets to handle their own publicity, pay their own recording fees, book their own studio time, hassle around for their own performances and carry around their little schedules with them – even to bed
Faced with such arduous artistic hostility, the final musical output can either be brilliant masterpieces or third-rate, studio regurgitation.
And that’s where most of our female rappers end up – worn out, beat, lacking in content, sloppy and forgotten.
 
On one hand we have Wangechi, a supremely gifted rapper whose mastery of the flow and microphone prowess is as outstanding – if not awe-inspiring- as that of Lauryn Hill, one of the world’s most esteemed lyricist and rappers that ever loved.
On the other hand, we have Noti Flow, an edgy, controversial character that has learned to push the boundaries, shock audiences, capitalize on social media and bank on notoriety to advance her rap career.
It’s just that, she has no business being a rapper. At all. At all.
 
But in an industry that’s so lacking in female emcees, Noti Flow seems like a godsend. And a necessary evil if only to fill up the echoing void created by the severe scarcity of notable rappers of the female gender.
Trouble is,the best and the most skilled in the arena don’t always stick around long enough, release more material and remain as active and as hungry as they need to be.
The worst we have in the pool tend to be the most active in all sectors – releasing song after song, hitting up the bloggers, getting news features and remaining very active and visible across all social platforms.
Rappers like STL and Wangechi are obviously the baddest we have in the game right now. Sadly,none of the two seems to have a vibrancy and prolific output of material month after month.
 
And even when STL does drop a new song,it’s always downright horrendous.
I don’t know when is the last time Wangechi released anything new. And buzzworthy.
Another downside to her is that, despite her massive skills and unmatchable adeptness at rap , Wangechi remains very unenamored by the mainstream and tends to always want to do stuff aimed at the underground audience – and we all know that doesn’t pay here. It never will.
says Kamah Burnz, a music producer and talent scout at Burnz Entertainment.
Rappers like Petra too offered huge promise after she wowed Kenyans with her fantastic rap in the Ligi Soo mega remix.
But today, Petra’s talent has been gobbled up by senseless blog stories, love scandals and probably her romantic commitment to a music video producer.
 
And even when she raps, it’s not in her own songs –  but in some mish-mash sort of thing that lumps her in the same clubby beat with her more ferocious and popular male colleagues.
Burnz adds.
Unfortunately, Nazizi,who many have considered the mother of rap, seems to have found other callings too and ditched her first love,too.
Once a ferocious rapper, with an undisputed excellence at the booth and credited with some of the hottest and most outstanding rap verses of all time, Nazizi was swallowed up by marriage and motherhood.
And then,by reggae and dancehall vibes.
says a fan.
Enter Kush Tracey and Noti Flow and the rest of the pop ilk that just yells into the mic and puts on an outrageous flamboyance for show.
What’s sad is that, the likes of Wangechi doesn’t posses the kind of media mastery, blog mentions, mad exposure and headline-grabbing antics normally found with these other less than stellar rappers.
Also, the media seems to not readily embrace new female rappers preferring to instead shine a light more on the singers than the femcees.
Irari, an editor at Ghafla and also an events organizer says.
Femi One’s case is even sadder.
Despite the fact that she’s young and upcoming, her style and sound on stuck in the past,in the old eras of Kalamashaka and in the dark dungeons of Dandora.
Her sound is more at home with the Ghetto Radio late night listeners as she breezes around with a hardcore, more wordplay-oriented slumdog vibe.
No matter what is done, the Female rapdom in Kenya will never expand and the players in it will never branch out to bigger things – or emerge as huge stars of their particular arena.
Daily,the field keeps dying. And the girls scattered in it keep burning out, losing, lacking lustre, giving up and bowing out.