Black Women Queering the Mic: Missy Elliott Disturbing the Boundaries of Racialized Sexuality and Gender

Abstract

Though there were and always have been djs, dancers, graffiti artists, and rappers who were Black women, they are placed on the periphery of hip-hop culture; their voices, along with “gay rappers” and “white rappers” devalued and their contribution to the global rise of hip-hop either forgotten or eschewed. This article is an attempt to articulate the existence of Black women who work outside of the paradigms of the “silence, secrecy, and a partially self-chosen invisibility” that Evelynn Hammonds describes. At the center of this article lies an attempt to locate a new configuration and expression of desire and sexuality, opening a door, wide open, to gain a different view of Black women, their sexuality, their expression of it, and the complexities that arise when they attempt to express it in hip hop nation language.

Keywords:

• Black women
• hip-hop
• linguistic anthropology
• queer, rap

Notes

1. I use this phrase inspired by McClaurin's (2001) introduction to Black Feminist Anthropology, where she quotes Othman Sullivan in John L. Gwanltney's Drylongso, who says, “I think this anthropology is just another way to call me a nigger” (p. 4).