The ‘Silent Fight’ for Representation in Hip Hop for Women, LGBTQ Community

How are women and the LGBTQ community reclaiming their power through hip hop?

Gus Navarro/WDET

Hip hop is one of America’s most prominent art forms of empowerment.

But it has also struggled with misogyny and homophobia — both in its lyrics and the business of hip hop itself.

Is that changing? And how are women and the LGBTQ community reclaiming their power through hip hop?

On Saturday at 2 p.m., the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History is hosting an event titled, “Culture as Capital: How We Use Hip Hop to Reclaim Representations of Women in Media.” The event is free and open to the public.

Piper Carter will lead that discussion at the Wright Museum. She’s a community organizer and founder of We Found Hip Hop, an organization that works to influence “the perceptions and roles of women in hip hop for current and future generations.”

Briana Younger is a music writer for the New Yorker and wrote an article in December 2018 titled, “Is Rap Finally Ready To Embrace Its Women?”

Elsie Swan is a Detroit based independent rapper — better known by her artist name Boog Brown.

Carter, Younger, and Swan join Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson to talk about representation in hip hop.

Click on the audio player above to hear those conversations.

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  • Detroit Today
    Dynamic and diverse voices. News, politics, community and the issues that define our region. Hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stephen Henderson, Detroit Today brings you fresh and perceptive views weekdays at 9 am and 7 pm.