In our continued coverage of hip-hop feminists for our “Turning 50” series, we highlight two important voices and pioneers in hip-hop feminist studies.Tricia Rose, a professor of Africana Studies at Brown University, was born and raised in Harlem and the Bronx in New York City. Her groundbreaking book, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), explored the emerging culture of hip-hop and helped to establish the birth of hip-hop studies. Her work addresses Black feminisms, Black women’s sexualities, and systemic racism.
Gwendolyn D. Pough, a professor of women’s studies and rhetoric at Syracuse University, is renowned for her scholarship on hip-hop feminism, begun with her seminal work, Check it While I Wreck it: Black Womanhood, Hip-Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere (2004).
(This series is part of “Turning 50,” which recognizes the women who shaped hip-hop.)