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Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps in Welcome to Okay f Daily with

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Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live ish from our

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Speaker 1: coaching studios and Times Square. You know, I am really

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Speaker 1: excited about today's interview with the author of a new book,

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Speaker 1: her very first memoir, Bad Fat Black Girl. Author Cecily

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Speaker 1: Bowen and I met roughly teny years ago. Funny enough,

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Speaker 1: it's it's so funny how you traverse different circles and

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Speaker 1: different places and then get to be a part of

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Speaker 1: seeing people's glow up right. And Cecily and I met

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Speaker 1: because she was working with a feminist women's organization that

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Speaker 1: was focused on abortion, that was particularly focused on abortions

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Speaker 1: and abortion rights for black and brown women who have

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Speaker 1: traditionally been left out of the conversations with regard to

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Speaker 1: feminism or have been erased from the history of first

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Speaker 1: second third wave feminism. And what she explores in her

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Speaker 1: memoir is her own acceptance and understanding of what it

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Speaker 1: means to be a trap feminist right, what it means

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Speaker 1: to decide that you were no longer going to bow

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Speaker 1: to the constraints that a white supremacists, misogynistic, patriarchal society

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Speaker 1: places on the bodies and the experiences and the movements

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Speaker 1: and the vocal tones of black women, And what this

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Speaker 1: book lifts up is the lived experiences of black girls

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Speaker 1: from the hood right whose stories are oftentimes told, if

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Speaker 1: told at all, particularly by Hollywood, with how downtrodden, how troubled,

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Speaker 1: how we should all feel empathy and sad as opposed

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Speaker 1: to lifting up the fullness of these people and their

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Speaker 1: joy and experiences and community and relationship building. So I'm

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Speaker 1: excited for you all to be a part of this conversation,

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Speaker 1: and I would love that when you have an opportunity

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Speaker 1: after listening, that you share your thoughts on what your

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Speaker 1: definition of feminism is. Are you a feminist? Coming up next,

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Speaker 1: dear friends, is my conversation with the author of Bad

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Speaker 1: Black Girl, Cecily Bowen. I hope that you enjoy this

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Speaker 1: conversation as much as I did, Folks, I am so

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Speaker 1: excited to welcome to ooka AffA Daily for the first time,

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Speaker 1: Cecily Bowen, who is the author. I love this title.

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Speaker 1: I love this title, Bad Fat Black Girl. Notes from

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Speaker 1: a Trap Feminist. Cecily, you are also the host of Purse.

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Speaker 1: The host of Purse, the first podcast about female and

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Speaker 1: queer rappers, which you know, according to mainstream hip hop,

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Speaker 1: you would think that we only have about one or

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Speaker 1: two female rappers right now, let alone any queer one.

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Speaker 1: So I appreciate that as well. And you were formerly

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Speaker 1: the senior entertainment writer at Refinery twenty nine, creating different

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Speaker 1: outlets and spaces in white pop culture for black female voices.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me about what it means to be a

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Speaker 1: trap feminist. Let's just start from the beginning so people

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Speaker 1: understand the distinction, because I think that right now we

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Speaker 1: are seeing a I don't even want to say a resurgence,

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Speaker 1: but a birth of a different type of feminism, a

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Speaker 1: different type of womanism. So talk to me about what

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Speaker 1: it means to be a trap feminist. And I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad that you brought that up, because while feminism was

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Speaker 1: something that I had initially started to like say out

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Speaker 1: loud and kind of ruminate on almost ten years ago.

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Speaker 1: Now the impetus for writing this book is because we're

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Speaker 1: having that that resurgence or you know, this kind of

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Speaker 1: popularization of a very specific kind of feminism that is

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Speaker 1: rooted in the experiences of essentially the hood, Black Girls

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Speaker 1: and the soundtrack to that. I'm glad you mentioned the

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Speaker 1: podcast perse first, because the soundtrack to this movement is

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Speaker 1: all of this amazing female route that we have right now.

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Speaker 1: So just for some contacts, I think that's super important.

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Speaker 1: But what it means to be a trap feminist is

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Speaker 1: to really look at and honor the experiences of Black women,

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Speaker 1: and specifically Black women who are from the hood, So

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Speaker 1: black women who come from that cultural space of blackness

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Speaker 1: that is so often commodified, that is so often appropriated,

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Speaker 1: and that it's so often vilified and talked about without

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Speaker 1: actually ever hearing from the Black women who live those experiences.

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Speaker 1: And it's very important to understand that trap feminism is

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Speaker 1: not about pathologizing or intervening in the lives of like

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Speaker 1: hood black women to like. What it actually does is

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Speaker 1: celebrate all of the ways in which those specific kinds

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Speaker 1: of black women have already been thriving and surviving and

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Speaker 1: living and being the blueprint and literally creating cultural exports

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Speaker 1: that people continuously exploit all the time and you know,

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Speaker 1: been popping while we was doing it, you know. And

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Speaker 1: so that that is what trap feminism does. And one

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Speaker 1: of the things that is so dope about it is

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Speaker 1: that it does look specifically at trap music and the

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Speaker 1: sight of trap music as a way to start interrogating

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Speaker 1: some of the themes regarding gender and sexuality and race

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Speaker 1: and capitalism and money and all of those kinds of things.

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Speaker 1: You know, I I love this because, you know, one

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Speaker 1: of the things that I think too often happens is

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Speaker 1: in our request to be I don't even know. We

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Speaker 1: don't really use the term politically correct, because nothing is

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Speaker 1: politically correct anymore. But in our way to kind of

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Speaker 1: distance black people and blackness from the hood, right, there

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Speaker 1: has been this um, what can I say, sanitizing of

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Speaker 1: the black sanitizing of the black experience, and sanitizing of

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Speaker 1: the type of black women or black woman that is

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Speaker 1: okay to discuss. Right. So I would argue that, you know,

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Speaker 1: when we when we had Michelle Obama as our first lady, right,

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Speaker 1: even though Michelle Obama was very clear that she came

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Speaker 1: from the South Side of Chicago, even though she's very

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Speaker 1: clear about like the distinctions and of her upbringing, she

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Speaker 1: still came through Ivy. She still had to, um, I

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Speaker 1: would say, wash off some of the hood nature itself

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Speaker 1: in order for acceptance. So do you feel that in

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Speaker 1: this kind of space that we are in now, and

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Speaker 1: this cultural space that we are in, that we can

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Speaker 1: have conversations with about what it means to be from

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Speaker 1: the hood, about what it means to have this multifacetedness

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Speaker 1: as black people, as black women without having to sanitize

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Speaker 1: ourselves or make ourselves safe for mainstream consumption. Like we

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Speaker 1: don't have to run from it anymore. I think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, that's one of the revolutionary properties of social

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Speaker 1: media is that that's where black women are having those

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Speaker 1: conversations without watering down or sanitizing themselves. There's literally the

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Speaker 1: first I don't know why this is the first person

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Speaker 1: we came to online. There's this hairstylens I follow She

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Speaker 1: like does wig installations and her name is queenly Or.

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Speaker 1: She's based in Alabama, but like she does these voiceovers

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Speaker 1: of her doing her installation, and she speaks in her accent,

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Speaker 1: she cusses, she's very she's very clear just about who

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Speaker 1: she is, and she's getting all of these followers and

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Speaker 1: all of you know, these kinds of you know, now

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Speaker 1: she's starting to do like brand deals and stuff, and

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Speaker 1: she does that unapologetically for being who she is. And

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Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because you know, I feel like

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Speaker 1: for the first you know, for the twenty tens and

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Speaker 1: maybe like the early as, the only people we were

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Speaker 1: letting do that, actually men who were impersonating black women

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Speaker 1: like those were the only people that we were letting

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Speaker 1: show up in the hood like girls. And so now

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Speaker 1: I feel like we're actually letting black women do it.

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Speaker 1: But it's so interesting. I love that you brought that

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Speaker 1: up because you know, you mentioned some of the places

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Speaker 1: that I that I worked, and you know, essentially that

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Speaker 1: is what a lot of people would call women's media,

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Speaker 1: you know, main culture. And it was when I got

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Speaker 1: to that space. You know, obviously I'm from Chicago, but

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Speaker 1: then I've also lived in DC, I've lived in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: I'm from these very like black these places with like

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Speaker 1: these you know, big black populations. But I think it

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Speaker 1: was when I started to work in media that I

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Speaker 1: started to see that the black people who were traditionally

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Speaker 1: occupying space in that specific industry were absolutely not from

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Speaker 1: the hood, and the ones that were were doing everything

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Speaker 1: they could to you know, not be from the hood.

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Speaker 1: And but but the thing about it was that because

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Speaker 1: I had a very non traditional path into journalism and

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Speaker 1: into media, like I ever went to journalism school or

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Speaker 1: any of that. My voice and my perspective as a

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Speaker 1: black girl from Ahood is actually what got me in

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Speaker 1: the door. It was, you know, we were in on

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Speaker 1: the advent of this. It was the era of the

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Speaker 1: personal narrative, and we were questioned. It was like where

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Speaker 1: pop culture and feminism were really having another kind of

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Speaker 1: merging together. Was when Scandal was on. Everybody wanted to

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Speaker 1: know if everything was feminist. And so my voice really

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Speaker 1: got me in the door. And I knew I could

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Speaker 1: not start to sacrifice who I was, you know, for

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Speaker 1: the work and for the space. And obviously, like you know,

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Speaker 1: I had to try to figure out how to navigate that,

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Speaker 1: you know, while also like maintaining like you know, the

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Speaker 1: norms of like professionalism and things like that. But I

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Speaker 1: was very adamant that I did not want to sacrifice

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Speaker 1: who I was, and I was adamant that like as

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Speaker 1: much as we talked about, like, you know, the origins

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Speaker 1: of a certain hairstyle, I knew that that wasn't enough

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Speaker 1: in terms of actually reflecting the voices of those women

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Speaker 1: because I think on the very other side of that,

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Speaker 1: we have all of these moments happening on the political

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Speaker 1: side right where we have black trans women being killed

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Speaker 1: at super high rates. Most of those black trans women

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Speaker 1: who were being killed we're from the hood. You know.

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Speaker 1: We have Brianna Taylor's death. You know, we have all

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Speaker 1: of these All of a sudden, black women are like martyrs,

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Speaker 1: and like we hear about them in death, and we

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Speaker 1: hear about them after they've been you know, experienced intimate

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Speaker 1: partner violence. We hear about them as statistics, you know,

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Speaker 1: in terms of you know, them contracting hid or what

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Speaker 1: the income gap is between them. There were all of these.

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Speaker 1: There are all these very material outcomes of what it

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Speaker 1: means to be black and from the hood and to

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Speaker 1: be female and black and from the hood that folks

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Speaker 1: like to talk about, and in that way, hood black

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Speaker 1: girls become ideas and they're not Actually we don't actually

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Speaker 1: ever hear from them though, we don't talk to them,

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Speaker 1: and it's not enough that we just say, oh, they

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Speaker 1: influenced this cultural trend. That that's not make up for

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Speaker 1: us not hearing those stories. And so you know that

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Speaker 1: it was really wanting to just make space for the

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Speaker 1: fact that we we can be spoken too, and we

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Speaker 1: should be allowed to speak instead of always being spoken about.

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Speaker 1: You know. What I also find interesting too is the

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Speaker 1: pushback that we see in the comments sections on some

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Speaker 1: black pages. Right so, you will have you know, various

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Speaker 1: various folks, various black women, right so, whether it's city girls,

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Speaker 1: whether it is you know, a lotto, whether it is

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Speaker 1: Michelle Obama, what have you. And there's always a set

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Speaker 1: of black people, black women in particular, who are embarrassed

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Speaker 1: by those said women or saying you know, uh, so

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Speaker 1: and so didn't die so that you could shake your

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Speaker 1: ass like this or so and so didn't What do

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Speaker 1: you say? You know, what? What? What? What? What? Is it?

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Speaker 1: Just the internalized like whiteness of it all, or like

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Speaker 1: don't let black don't let white folks, you know, don't

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Speaker 1: air out our dirty laundry type of thing. What do

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Speaker 1: you think is kind of this stem where? Where where

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Speaker 1: that internalized oppression is coming from? So I think it

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Speaker 1: has a lot to do with respectability and survival. I

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Speaker 1: think that we are, you know, it's it's hammered into

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Speaker 1: us from such, you know, from so many different angles

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Speaker 1: and from so many different places that in order to

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Speaker 1: make it in the world, that in order to be

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Speaker 1: an upstanding citizen. You are to deny a lot of

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Speaker 1: the things that really make you black and make ubliquity

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Speaker 1: black black, you know, not not just you know, your

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Speaker 1: ancestral roots or anything like that. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was a conversation that was I remember the same

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Speaker 1: conversation happening with black men around sagging their pants, the

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Speaker 1: conversations that were had around black men wearing locks or

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Speaker 1: having braids, and institutions and institutions from the NFL and

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Speaker 1: the NBA to more House and so I think it's

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Speaker 1: really just a reflection of that. But I think the

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Speaker 1: issue with that is that, first of all, respectability politics

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Speaker 1: have never saved us, and they never will. And the

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Speaker 1: faster we accept that, the better off we will be.

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Speaker 1: Honestly and truly, that will not stop us from experiencing

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Speaker 1: the trickle down of systemic racism, gender based violence, sexism,

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Speaker 1: or any of that. However, I do think that some

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Speaker 1: of the tools of respectability they help lighten the load.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I can say, even for myself, the fact

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Speaker 1: that I am college educated, the fact that I the

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Speaker 1: fact that I have the gift of literacy itself, the

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Speaker 1: fact that I can read and write period. You know,

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Speaker 1: has it helps me to have the platform to even

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Speaker 1: be able to talk about to be able to talk

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Speaker 1: about tripe feminism. But I think where we mess up

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Speaker 1: is that we cannot participate in that while also promoting

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Speaker 1: the eradication of the things that just make us black,

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Speaker 1: you know. And I learned that from a lot of

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Speaker 1: different people. You know, one of my mentors, friends, one

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Speaker 1: of my professors and college was doctor who was Nicole Brown,

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Speaker 1: who started this program called Soul High, Saving our Lives,

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Speaker 1: Hearing our Truths. And the basic principle of this program

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Speaker 1: was that you know, us as college students and college professors,

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Speaker 1: we would go to work with black girls and like

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Speaker 1: local schools off campus, you know, people who were just

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Speaker 1: from that neighborhood, and you know, we were not going

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Speaker 1: into those schools. Were like an interventionist approach. A lot

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Speaker 1: of the programs that have been catered to working with

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Speaker 1: black girls were about like you know, polishing them up,

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Speaker 1: teaching them about we have to teach them about hygiene,

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Speaker 1: we have to teach them to be ladies, we have

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Speaker 1: to teach them to thrive. Because like the idea was

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Speaker 1: that there was something inherent about black girlhood or about

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Speaker 1: being black girls from the hood that they just didn't

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Speaker 1: know about like how to be like women of the world.

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Speaker 1: And we were like, no, actually, we want to go

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Speaker 1: in there and like do art and like let them

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Speaker 1: tell their own stories, and we want them to roll

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Speaker 1: their necks and pop their lips, and we want them

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Speaker 1: to just ruvel in the beauty that is black girlhood.

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Speaker 1: And then we can make them that we can make

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Speaker 1: the meaning of that, and they can make the meaning

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Speaker 1: of their own lives. But like, let's have them tell us, actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, what the what their lives are, like, what

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Speaker 1: they need and what they need to experience. And so

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Speaker 1: that is a practice that is very much so embedded

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Speaker 1: in the heart of tripe feminism and in terms of

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Speaker 1: how I work. But I think that's also my response

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Speaker 1: to a lot of the fear, going back to your question,

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Speaker 1: to a lot of the fear and a lot of

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Speaker 1: the respective respectability pushback that we see online, especially from

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Speaker 1: other black folks, that like, if we you know, no

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Speaker 1: one died from to be able to for me to

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Speaker 1: shake my ass on the internet, But they also didn't

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Speaker 1: die for me to be ashamed of shaking my ass

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Speaker 1: on the internet. Even that wasn't that wasn't the end all,

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Speaker 1: be y'all, Like, let's beat Like when we talk about

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Speaker 1: why you know, if we you know, Martin Luther King

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Speaker 1: is usually who late who they use as the example.

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Speaker 1: But like if we want to talk about what Martin

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Speaker 1: Luther King died for, like Martin Luther King died as

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Speaker 1: at the hands of white supremacy, and then an attempt

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Speaker 1: at end white supremacy, like it ain't had nothing to

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Speaker 1: do it. Who was shaking the ass or who was not?

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Speaker 1: You know, because in an ideal world, you know, if

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Speaker 1: we really eradicated white supremacy, me shaking my ass would

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Speaker 1: not be a sign of inferiority or unproductivity or failure

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Speaker 1: in a way that you think it is, because oh god,

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Speaker 1: I love it, Like yes, yes, I'm not. I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna turn into no white woman for y'all. I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I'm just not gonna do it, Okay, like y'all we are,

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Speaker 1: we are not of elitism is not gonna save us respectability.

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Speaker 1: It's not gonna save it us. And and honestly, like

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Speaker 1: we've been doing fun, I think that's also the issue

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Speaker 1: that like the damn is that you think is being

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Speaker 1: caused by black girl shaking her ass on the internet

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Speaker 1: just doesn't exist in the way as you think it does.

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Speaker 1: But what does is like misogyny. I was going to

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Speaker 1: say her, yeah, because because what the product that the

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Speaker 1: issue is not about whether or not or how or

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Speaker 1: when to shake your ass, right like, that is actually

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Speaker 1: not the thing. It's about being free or being or

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Speaker 1: living in a perceived free society that there is not

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Speaker 1: going to be repercussions for doing so. Repercussion being like, oh,

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Speaker 1: well that's why she got raped or that's why she

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Speaker 1: got beat or that's why this happened. And it's just like, well,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait a minute, that

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Speaker 1: didn't come from that action. That came from what we

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Speaker 1: have decided in our society is normal and acceptable. Right,

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Speaker 1: that misogyny is okay, that patriarchy is okay, that abuse

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Speaker 1: of women is okay. You know, it was earlier. It

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be the seventeen seventeenth birthday of Michaia,

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Speaker 1: who was gunned down last year in front of her

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Speaker 1: foster care home by police who rolled up in the

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Speaker 1: midst of a fight. And and you know, and Makaiah

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Speaker 1: did not receive the type of wall to wall coverage

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Speaker 1: campaign and all of these things, and a part of

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Speaker 1: me believes, and I want to ask you, this, is

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Speaker 1: it because she was not the perfect martyr? Is it

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Speaker 1: because she wasn't thin? Is it because her background wasn't

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Speaker 1: polished right that we couldn't say that, oh, she was

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Speaker 1: asleep in her bed or oh she was doing X

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Speaker 1: like that she was in the action of defending herself

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Speaker 1: and her body, and we don't like to see black

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Speaker 1: women doing that, Like what do you why do you

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Speaker 1: think you know? And because I want to honor that,

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Speaker 1: like honor the truth about why her name will most

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Speaker 1: likely be lost as years go on and not a

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Speaker 1: part of the broader array of hashtags that we know

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Speaker 1: and stories that we can conjure because of the contact

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Speaker 1: of it. That is so and you literally hit the

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Speaker 1: nail on the head. People are not rallying around the

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Speaker 1: death of that fifteen year old girl because let's be like,

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Speaker 1: she was a fifteen year old child who had already

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Speaker 1: been disserviced and not receiving things that she deserved as

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Speaker 1: an innocent child just by way of being in a

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Speaker 1: problematic foster care system in the birthplace. But it literally

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Speaker 1: is because she was in the active mode of fighting

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Speaker 1: back and defending herself from she saw as a threat

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Speaker 1: that people have not run to like defend her name

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Speaker 1: in the same way that they did a black woman

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Speaker 1: who literally wasn't doing anything except sleeping. And I think

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Speaker 1: that that and also so much comes with that, the

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Speaker 1: fact that she was a bigger black girl. People did

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Speaker 1: not see her as a victim who even needed to

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Speaker 1: defend herself in the first place. Yeah, they thought that

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Speaker 1: she should just have been in a situation. She must

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Speaker 1: have been the aggressive, she must have been the person

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Speaker 1: who calls all of this chaos. And even the fact

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Speaker 1: that the police's response to seeing her with a knife

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Speaker 1: was to shoot has everything to do with the fact

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Speaker 1: that she was a big black woman, Because then, yell,

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Speaker 1: how many videos have you seen a white people wielding

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Speaker 1: swords hitting the girl come on, hitting the police using

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Speaker 1: their martial arts, spitting in their faces, slapping the person

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Speaker 1: them out, And those officers don't even think to reach

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Speaker 1: for a weapon, not a taste or not a baton,

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Speaker 1: not a handcuff. And so we have to be honest

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Speaker 1: about how black girl bodies are literally read as more

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Speaker 1: dangerous and also less valuable. Yes, because the decision that's

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Speaker 1: being made is whose life am I here to save

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Speaker 1: and who can and who can go in my efforts

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Speaker 1: to save those lives. And Makaya's life ended up at

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Speaker 1: the bottom, and that has everything to do with the

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Speaker 1: fact that she was a fat black girl, and people

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Speaker 1: who refuse to acknowledge that are being intentionally obtuse. At

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Speaker 1: this point, do you think that because you know, even

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Speaker 1: in the title of your book, right, you use the

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Speaker 1: word fat? Yeah? Right? And if do you use it,

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Speaker 1: I'll just ask why do you use the term why

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Speaker 1: do you use the term fat? Yeah? So I think

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Speaker 1: it's really interesting because I think that, first of all,

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Speaker 1: I use the term because I am fat. That's that's

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Speaker 1: what I am. That is a descriptor of my body,

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Speaker 1: that is that is how I look. And I do

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Speaker 1: understand that the word fat is very loaded, and I

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Speaker 1: think for a lot of people, right, it comes with

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Speaker 1: a negative connotation. And we've developed all of these other

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Speaker 1: words like plus size or thick or voluptuous or what

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Speaker 1: you know whatever, all these quote unquote likes you from

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Speaker 1: those amisms to describe fat that are supposed to that

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Speaker 1: are supposed to imply that we don't mean harm when

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Speaker 1: we say them, and so I actually think that I

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Speaker 1: intentionally use the word fat because I want people to

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Speaker 1: actually come back to that place of discomfort, Like I

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Speaker 1: want you to come back to that place where you

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Speaker 1: are thinking of fat as an inherently negative word, so

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Speaker 1: that then you can like hear everything else that I

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Speaker 1: have to say and then hopefully question that, like why

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Speaker 1: why the word fat was bad in the first place,

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Speaker 1: And so that is that is why I use that word.

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Speaker 1: I've always gone by you know, bad Fat Black Girl

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Speaker 1: on the internet. That's that was my social media handle. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to title the book just notes

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Speaker 1: from a trip Feminist period, Like I wanted that to

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Speaker 1: be the title. Um as we were kind of workshopping

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Speaker 1: some other titles that just because they thought folks would

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Speaker 1: know My publisher UM and my editor and my agent.

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Speaker 1: They were like, Okay, we're not sure that people are

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Speaker 1: immediately gonna know what trap feminist trip feminism is, so

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Speaker 1: we might need another title that's like that kind of

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Speaker 1: brings people into by the book. And so I get

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Speaker 1: why we got there, But I mean that title bad

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Speaker 1: Fat Black Girl, obviously it's super important to me. It's

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Speaker 1: right there, um, you know, and that is how I

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Speaker 1: identify myself online. But I'm glad you brought this up too,

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Speaker 1: because I think in the context of black folks and

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Speaker 1: like black folks from the hood, you know, the body

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Speaker 1: po sitivity space traditionally has been represented by a lot

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Speaker 1: of white people and a lot of white Yes, it's

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Speaker 1: been very you know, like body positivity has been like

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Speaker 1: overrepresented by whiteness. And I think one of the misconceptions

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Speaker 1: that came out of that was that black people are

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Speaker 1: somehow not fatphobic or less fatphobic, and that also wasn't true.

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Speaker 1: So it was really important that I was able to

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Speaker 1: talk about my fatness and the context of my blackness,

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Speaker 1: to talk about the desirability and body politics and the

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Speaker 1: kind of the economies of desirability within black culture specifically,

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Speaker 1: and again trip music trip culture was one of those

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Speaker 1: sites where it was right there, really saw how black

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Speaker 1: women's bodies were being talked about in that context. So

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Speaker 1: I think another reason why it was important for me

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Speaker 1: to really identify myself as fat in the context of

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Speaker 1: this conversation was because it was important that folks didn't

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Speaker 1: know that I was approaching like hip hop or hip

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00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: hop criticism or commentary from the perspective of a video

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Speaker 1: bits in like, if we look at a lot of

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Speaker 1: the women who have been allowed to take up spaces,

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00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 1: it's like hip hop journalists or hip hop you know artists,

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Speaker 1: the artists, they all look at certain way. You know,

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Speaker 1: even somebody particularly right now exactly, they all look the same. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And even somebody like Angeli Yee, you know who hosts

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Speaker 1: like you know, I'm reviewably one of the hugest you know,

432
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:22,719
Speaker 1: hip hop talk shows. Um, And I've met Angelie. She's

433
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: such a dope person. But you know, Angeli ye is

434
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 1: light skin, she's she's um, She's what a lot of

435
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:31,440
Speaker 1: people would consider desirable and attractive. She's saying she's not sad,

436
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: you know, like your aren't like that. Women don't appear

437
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:35,959
Speaker 1: in hip hop. The closest thing we've got is Lizzo

438
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:38,879
Speaker 1: and and the bigger Rizzo and the bigger the more

439
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: famous Lizzo has gotten, the more pop her music has

440
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 1: started to sound like it like we we we hardly

441
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: even have room for people who are plus sizes and

442
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 1: hip hop. So it was just really important for me

443
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,360
Speaker 1: to like insert myself in that way and to say no,

444
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 1: like it's a fat bitch talking right now? Can I

445
00:26:54,760 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: curse on me? I'm sorry the show is called Okay Okay, yeah,

446
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: like I needed people to know, like it's it's a

447
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:04,439
Speaker 1: big bitch talking to y'all are gonna hear what I

448
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: have to say? You know? Um? You know the one

449
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: I want to ask you this too, like just with

450
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: regard to your podcast purse first and wanting to showcase

451
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: black female rappers as well as like black female queer rappers.

452
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 1: You know, do you think, like I hate when people

453
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 1: say like, oh, we're in the golden age of like

454
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: X right, um, but what do you feel about the

455
00:27:36,960 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 1: prevalence or the way in which black female rappers are

456
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: being marketed are being presented right now? You know? As

457
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 1: a as a commisseur of female rapper right um, I

458
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: have always loved the rap girl. Ever since Traina, Ever

459
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: since Traina's nan verse, I have been a rap girl girl. Okay,

460
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: I think at first, I think I would say, like

461
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nineteen, I was just I was

462
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,880
Speaker 1: so excited because it instill I'm just to be clear.

463
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: But in twenty nineteen, I was so excited because it

464
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: was like we had not only did we have you know,

465
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:17,879
Speaker 1: I think the goal poster everybody was that we had

466
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: more than one female rapper at the time. So not

467
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: only did we have more than one female reppert the time,

468
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: like we had girls make the stallion, We had you know,

469
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: Rico Nasty, we have it mother. It was also like

470
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: the diversity of the sounds, like we were getting um,

471
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: you know, we had Doja Cat coming out who was like,

472
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:35,440
Speaker 1: who's really like giving like kind of tyler of a creator,

473
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: all encompassing creative vibes. And then we had Megan who

474
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,720
Speaker 1: had this really deep voice with like this like UGK

475
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: type of inspired floating. We had a city girls from

476
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: Miami who would like direct us and thee Trina. We

477
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: had young and May who was a stud from New York.

478
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 1: You know, like we had this diversity a female right,

479
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, this is licked. This this

480
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: is where it's at for me. How I'm starting to

481
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: feel these days, I think coming into twenty twenty and

482
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one is that obviously all female rappers have

483
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: to thank the career trajectory of Nicki Minaj for the

484
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 1: doors that have been able to being open to them

485
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,000
Speaker 1: in terms of the types of commercial success that they

486
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: have been able to attain. And I think what a

487
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: lot of people learn from that was that Nicki Minaj

488
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: had to go through her awkward and in my opinion,

489
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: terrible super based phase right where she was, you know,

490
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: wearing pink chicken wing necklaces and making and looking yeah like,

491
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 1: you know, wearing the big wigs, you know, doing the

492
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga aesthetic and kind of making the top hits

493
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: in order to in order to cross that threshold and

494
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: become mainstream. And so now what I'm seeing is that

495
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: that is also kind of the formula that a lot

496
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: of the rap girls are being forced to kind of

497
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: also fit into. It's like, the moment they hit a

498
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: certain amount of followers on Instagram, it's like, let's put

499
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: them into lea. It's hard and some types. Let's teach

500
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: them how to do a five, six, seven, eight. Let's

501
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: teach them how to do this when they hold the mic,

502
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: give us a give us some hand tests, some moves,

503
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: and let's find a cute and let's find a cute

504
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: pop inspired beat to have them wrap over. And I

505
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: hate it. I hate it because one is compromising their artistry.

506
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned a Lottle earlier in this conversation.

507
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,239
Speaker 1: She's the most recent one that we've seen this. Her

508
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: recent single is various, like a remake of a of

509
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: a Mariah Carey made, and it is very much so

510
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: not her. The video she seems very unnatural. She seems

511
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: like she's concentrating so hard on those moves, and also

512
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: it has taken her out of a lane that she

513
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: was actually occupying. We never asked little Dirk to do Coreo.

514
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: We never asked a little baby to come do Chorea

515
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: and to come make pop songs, and we do. We'll

516
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: let them do the pop songs, but not in that

517
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: way where we need to need them to have a

518
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: pop image. Like we let black men be hood niggas

519
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: from start to finish and then everyone else figures out

520
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,080
Speaker 1: a way to let them in. But I feel like

521
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: with the rap girl, they don't get to just stay

522
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 1: street bitches. They have to at some point become glam

523
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: girls or pop girls or pop stars or content creators

524
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: or influences or whatever whatever the case may be that is.

525
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: That is frustrating. So I'm actually season two a Purse

526
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: Verse is going to be returning. We're just like figuring

527
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: out our funding situation. And I cannot wait because me

528
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: and my co host Pierre, who was a queer rapper,

529
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: which is also another subset of folks that we have,

530
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: you know, on the show, Like, we have so much

531
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: to talk about around that and and around how they're

532
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: kind of trying to follow this certain like, um, make

533
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: a female rapper template. That is really watering down. Um,

534
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: it's watering down the options and you know, and it

535
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 1: goes back to like kind of what I talked about

536
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: and trap feminism, like when we talked about the sanitation

537
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 1: of like black Yeah, And part of the reason why

538
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: that was necessary is because there were a lot of

539
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: like one dimensional representations of black people from the hood

540
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: to the point where it was actually stereotypical. And I

541
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: feel like, what what entertainment and music in Hollywood? And

542
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: everyone thought the solution to that was, well, let's lean

543
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: into like black exceptionalism. Let's lean into you know, black

544
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: girls who go to coo the other side of the

545
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: perspect all the way to the other side of the spectrum. Well, like,

546
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: really that wasn't necessarily the solution. Like the actual answer

547
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: was that what y'all don't realize is that there are

548
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: thousands of different stories from the hood that you could

549
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: be telling. How about you just stopped telling the same one.

550
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,040
Speaker 1: How about you stop only looking for the trauma and

551
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 1: the tragedy in the hood and actually start looking at

552
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: the joy in the in the in the creativity and

553
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: the resilience and the fun and you know, all of

554
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 1: those things about it. And so you know, like, we

555
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: don't need another show about the drug game fifty cent,

556
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Like, I think I think

557
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: that's why so many people like pe Valley, because like

558
00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: it was a different perspective on like strippers then we

559
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: them of black strippers in particular that we've seen in

560
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: a while. And so I think it's the same thing

561
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: with I feel like I see people making that mistake

562
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: with the rap girls. Um, people are like, oh, we

563
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: didn't have enough women in raps, so now we you know,

564
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: Nicki Minaj was the only rap girl that we let

565
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: be successful, so we need to have more than one

566
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: rap girl who can be successful. Whereas actually it's like

567
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: Nicki Minaj is the only rap girl we let be successful,

568
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 1: and we made Nicki Minaj compromise a lot of her

569
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 1: artistry in order to do that right, how about we

570
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 1: actually let more black girls be successful in rap without

571
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: having I compromise themselves, Like, let's just let's just let

572
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: them say who they want to be from start to finish.

573
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is you know, the kind

574
00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 1: of premise in the theme of your book is just like,

575
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: how about we just let black girls just be right,

576
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: so be like the period like that's that's just like,

577
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,800
Speaker 1: how about we just let them be um successfully. I

578
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: just thank you so much. Then, this has been such

579
00:33:54,600 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: a delightful conversation. Um, I am so excited for you.

580
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 1: I wish you nothing but like boodles and oodles of

581
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: success with bad fat black girl notes from a trap feminist.

582
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: Everyone go and pick it up and buy it today.

583
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm I'm so excited for you and I

584
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: hope that you will come back and join us again. Absolutely,

585
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: thank you so much. This has been such a grateful

586
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 1: moment of us reconnecting and I'm just so happy to

587
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: be ten years it's been a decade, Like, wow, thank

588
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: you so much to day. Yeah, I appreciate it so much.

589
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: That is it for today's Woke Up Daily podcast. To

590
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 1: hear more from today's show, Support me on Patreon at

591
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: patreon dot com, slash woke AF Power to the people

592
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,359
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay

593
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.