Nowadays, female rappers like Cardi B, Ice Spice, Latto, Coi Leray, Megan Thee Stallion, and more rule the charts and are just as commonplace in hip-hop as men are. It’s safe to say that now is the best time ever to be a woman in rap, as a great deal of the rap songs that make a buzz in the hip-hop community currently come from women.
Videos by American Songwriter
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always this way. In order for the aforementioned acts to have access to the stardom they do now, ladies before them had to pave the way. In each decade of hip-hop’s 50-year history, you’ll likely find one or two iconic women per generation that broke through a glass ceiling and left a tremendous impact. So, we at American Songwriter figured now is a better time than any to give those emcees their flowers.
Here are the five most influential female rappers ever.
1. Nicki Minaj
Known as “The Queen,” Nicki Minaj had a truly dominant presence in rap from the late 2000s to present day. With smash hits like “Super Bass,” “Starships,” and “Anaconda,” as well as show-stopping feature verses on Kanye West’s “Monster” and Justin Bieber’s “Beauty and a Beat,” Minaj made it pretty hard to pick anybody else to top this list.
2. Lauryn Hill
With one studio album, aside from her fantastic efforts for The Fugees, Lauryn Hill made an impact on hip-hop that cannot be duplicated. Her 1998 debut LP The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill has stood the test of time impeccably and has inspired some of the mainstream’s most prominent artists for decades after its release, such as Drake, Cardi B, Lizzo, J. Cole, Pharrell Williams, and Kanye West.
3. MC Lyte
New York’s MC Lyte is an impossible name to leave off of this list. In 1988, she became the first solo female rap artist to officially release a studio album. Dubbed Lyte as a Rock, the project contained career hits of her’s like “10% Dis” and “Paper Thin,” opening the door for her to eventually put out seven more albums later in her career.
At the peak of her powers in 1996, songs like “Keep On, Keepin’ On” and “Cold Rock a Party” became her highest-charting songs ever.
4. Missy Elliott
A featured artist on MC Lyte’s “Cold Rock a Party,” Missy Elliott was a primary voice in helping hip-hop transition into the new millennium. With “Sock It 2 Me” and “Hot Boyz” lighting up the 90s and “Get Ur Freak On” and “Work It” dominating the early 2000s, Elliott and her producing partner Timbaland cemented themselves as one of the greatest tandems in rap history.
5. Queen Latifah
Although she began in hip-hop in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Queen Latifah was one of the first rappers of either gender to demonstrate how to make themselves marketable in other forms of entertainment. For example, while her 1993 single “U.N.I.T.Y.” and 1994 hit “Just Another Day…” reached Nos. 23 and 54 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively, Latifah was also starring in the legendary FOX sitcom Living Single.
To this day, the effects of Latifah’s multi-hyphenate career are felt all throughout the rap and music industry, as artists continuously look to get their feet in the door of other creative avenues.
Photo by Johnny Nunez/WireImage
