#NNPA BlackPress
Meet The Pioneering Queens of Hip-Hop
THE BIRMINGHAM TIMES — Women have always been integral to hip-hop, dating to its founding. Cindy Campbell, the sister of Clive Campbell—better known as hip-hop originator DJ Kool Herc—is considered the First Lady and Mother of Hip-Hop, after she organized a party in 1973 with her brother as the DJ. No one knew then that hip-hop would grow from a set of turntables in the recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx into a multibillion-dollar business.
The Birmingham Times
Quite naturally, when discussing the pioneering women of hip-hop, the names of DJ Spinderella (Deidre Roper) of Salt-N-Pepa and MC Lyte (Lana Michelle Moorer) come to mind, as they did when The Birmingham Times interviewed some of the Magic City’s female DJs.
Women have always been integral to hip-hop, dating to its founding. Cindy Campbell, the sister of Clive Campbell—better known as hip-hop originator DJ Kool Herc—is considered the First Lady and Mother of Hip-Hop, after she organized a party in 1973 with her brother as the DJ. No one knew then that hip-hop would grow from a set of turntables in the recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the Bronx into a multibillion-dollar business.
And there is the late Sylvia Robinson, founder of the renowned hip-hop record label Sugar Hill Records; she passed away in 2011. This visionary had the foresight to sign a trio of young men from Englewood, New Jersey: Michael “Wonder Mike” Wright, the late Henry “Big Bank Hank” Jackson (he passed away in 2014), and Guy “Master Gee” O’Brien, known collectively as the Sugar Hill Gang. Robinson was the driving force behind the first landmark singles in hip-hop: “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang (1979) and “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five (1982).
Campbell and Robinson played a key role in the birth of hip-hop. Since then, women have helped nurture hip-hop culture and move it forward with deft lyrics, unique fashion statements, and overall brilliance. Here are 10 pioneering women of hip-hop.
Queen Latifah
One of the most successful, if not the most successful, female artists in hip-hop is Queen Latifah, born Dana Elaine Owens in Newark, N.J. As a rapper, she has won a Grammy Award. As an actor, she has received Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations and won an Emmy Award. She also has been a talk show host and a product spokesperson and has worked on two documentaries for the Lifetime cable network. Queen Latifah is an original member of the Flavor Unit, a group of New York and New Jersey MCs and DJs. Along with fellow original Flavor Unit member Shakim Compere, Queen Latifah established Flavor Unit Entertainment, a film-and-management company that has produced more than 15 films and influenced the early careers of dozens of rap artists. She also was a member of the Native Tongues hip-hop collective, which included groups like De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and fellow female MC Monie Love; one of the group’s hits was “Buddy,” which featured verses from Queen Latifah and Monie Love. Queen La’s debut album “All Hail the Queen” (1989) included the hit single “Ladies First” (also with partner-in-rhyme Monie Love). Her third album “Black Reign” (1993) featured the Grammy-winning “U.N.I.T.Y.,” an anthem that spoke out against the disrespect of women in hip-hop culture. In 2006, Queen Latifah was the first hip-hop artist to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in October 2019 she received the W.E.B. Dubois Medal for her contributions to black history and culture during a ceremony at Harvard University. Still serving as the CEO of Flavor Unit Entertainment, Queen Latifah proves the sky is the limit not only for women in hip-hop but also for women of color.
Salt-N-Pepa
The trio of Cheryl “Salt” James, Sandy “Pepa” Denton, and Deidra “DJ Spinderella” Roper released their first album “Hot, Cool, and Vicious” in December 1986 and, propelled by the Grammy Award–nominated hit “Push It,” became the first female rap act to earn a platinum status LP. The group set trends with their hairstyles, wardrobe, and dance-driven music videos. The ladies of Salt-N-Pepa also were recognized for developing their own brand of hip-hop feminism, with lyrics that embraced female sexuality on songs like “Let’s Talk about Sex,” “Whatta Man,” and “Shoop.” The group has sold more than 15 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling rap acts of all time, male or female. And in 1995, they won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for their song “None of Your Business.” Salt-N-Pepa remained together until earlier this year, when Roper announced she had been “terminated” from the group.
Roxanne Shanté
“I gave birth to most of them MCs, … so when it comes around to the month of May, send me your royalty check for Mother’s Day.”—Roxanne Shanté, “Have a Nice Day”
Lolita Shanté Gooden was an unknown 14-year-old who approached hip-hop producer Marlon “Marley Marl” Williams with the idea of a rap response to the UFTO hit “Roxanne, Roxanne.” Her 1994 single “Roxanne’s Revenge” triggered the Roxanne Wars, one of the most well-known series of hip-hop rivalries during the 1980s—maybe ever; it spawned anywhere from 30 to more than 100 answer records citing Roxanne’s family or making various claims about the rapper. And probably a first in rap, the Roxanne Wars created a dispute between two personas who were created as a result of a song: Roxanne Shanté and The Real Roxanne. Gooden, the original Roxanne, was born and raised in the Queensbridge Projects in New York’s Long Island City neighborhood, and was part of the Juice Crew, a group of artists founded by Marley Marl and legendary New York City DJ John “Mr. Magic” Rivas, who passed away in 2009. Not only was Shanté’s song the first recorded “battle response” in hip-hop, but she became one of hip-hop’s first female battle rappers. She started out vocally sparring with UTFO and moved next to fellow female MC Doreen “Sparky D” Broadnax, a clash that led to several freestyle face-offs between the two female rappers. “Roxanne, Roxanne,” a dramatized biopic about Roxanne Shanté’s life that was first shown at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, received critical acclaim. The film was co-produced by actor Forest Whitaker and music producer Pharrell Williams, and its lead actress, Chanté Adams, won a special jury prize for breakthrough dramatic performance at Sundance for her portrayal of Roxanne Shanté.
MC Lyte
Born Lana Michelle Moorer, MC Lyte ushered in a whole new way of how women were viewed in hip-hop. Her 1988 release of “Lyte As A Rock” marked the beginning of the solo female MC. She broke barriers in the music industry not only for being the first solo female MC to sell millions of singles and albums but also for her songs that helped transition hip-hop from the feel-good, party vibe of the late 1970s into a socially conscious form of expression. She addressed issues like racism, sexism, and the drug culture that consumed her community, and she was the first rap artist to perform at Carnegie Hall. The 1993 single “Roughneck” earned the legendary lyricist a Grammy Award nomination for Best Rap Single. MC Lyte would later serve as the first African American woman president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Recording Academy (the Grammy organization) from 2011 to 2013. She still performs, writes music, runs a scholarship foundation, mentors, and acts. She also is a much-sought-after DJ who has provided music for the NAACP Image Awards, Essence, Black Enterprise, and several other groups. MC Lyte’s journal is part of the “Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life” collecting initiative by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
MC Sha Rock
When the Funky Four Plus One hit the music scene many may not have paid attention to the “Plus One”—Sharon “MC Sha Rock” Green, also referred to as the “Mother of the Mic” and the “Luminary Icon.” As an early pioneer affiliated with the Universal Zulu Nation, an international hip-hop-awareness group, Sha Rock inspired use of the “echo chamber,” a style of rapping emulated and made notable by later groups, including 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Run-DMC. The Funky Four Plus One had their first significant hits with the singles “Rapping and Rocking the House” (1979) and “That’s the Joint” (1980), both on Sugar Hill Records. The group made rap and hip-hop television history by being the first music artists to appear on national broadcast television. In 1981, progressive rock group Blondie, the featured performer on an episode of Saturday Night Live, chose the Funky Four—plus 19-year-old Sha Rock—as their special musical guests for the last live music slot of the show. When the group disbanded, Sha Rock went on to form an all-female rap group, Us Girls, which was featured in “Beat Street,” the 1984 groundbreaking film about New York City hip-hop culture.
Sister Souljah
Not many rap artists have had books appear on The New Times Best Sellers list, but Lisa Williamson—better known as Sister Souljah—has done it three times. Sister Souljah used her platform as a hip-hop artist to spark critical debates about race in America and encouraged often-silenced black women to speak up, not only through music but also as activists in communities around the world. During her teenage years, she received several honors, including the American Legion’s Constitutional Oratory Contest, for which she received a scholarship to attend Cornell University’s Advanced Summer Program. She graduated from Rutgers University with a dual degree in American History and African Studies. During her senior year at Rutgers, she developed and financed the African Youth Survival Camp for children of homeless families, a six-week summer sleepaway camp in Enfield, N.C. Sister Souljah appeared as a featured guest on several tracks with revolutionary hip-hop artists Public Enemy and eventually became a full member of the group, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. In 1992, she released her only album, “360 Degrees of Power,” but she will forever be remembered for her statements about the Los Angeles riots that took place the same year. In an interview, she was quoted in The Washington Post as saying, “If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?” The quotation was later reproduced in the media, and she was widely criticized. Then presidential candidate Bill Clinton publicly criticized that statement and the Rev. Jesse Jackson for allowing the rapper to be part of his Rainbow Coalition—thus the “Sister Souljah Moment” was created.
Oaktown’s 357
Suhayla “Sweet L.D.” Sabir, Phyllis “Lil P” Charles, and Tabatha Zee “Terrible T” King-Brooks began as background dancers for Stanley “MC Hammer” Burrell and in the late 1980s released their own Billboard Top 10 hit singles: “Juicy Gotcha Krazy” and “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.” “Oaktown” is a nickname for Oakland, Calif., and “357” referred to a .357 Magnum revolver to represent the power of their dance moves. The group struggled through member changes, and when Hammer’s popularity slid, so did the group. The ladies released two more albums—“Fully Loaded” (1991) and “Fila Treatment” (1992)—but by that time, most listeners had moved on. Still, that doesn’t take away from their role in the growth of female representation in hip-hop, especially at a time when the genre was male-dominated.
J. Fad
Without J. J. Fad’s 1998 platinum-selling debut album “Supersonic,” Ruthless Records wouldn’t have had the cash to drop N.W.A.’s seminal “Straight Outta Compton,” which was released later that same year, according to members of the group and superproducer Andre “Dr. Dre” Young in the Grammy Award–winning Best Music Film “The Defiant Ones.” J. J. Fad featured a rotating cast of Juana “MC JB” Burns, Juanita “Crazy J” Lee, Fatima “OG Rocker” Shaheed, Anna “Lady Anna” Cash, and Dania “Baby D” Birks; the group’s name is an acronym formed from the first letter each member’s first name. These ladies don’t get enough credit for their role in hip-hop history.
The Sequence
Another pioneering group signed to Sugar Hill Records in the late 1970s was The Sequence, which in 1979 released “Funk You Up,” the first rap single by a female group. The group’s members—Cheryl “Cheryl the Pearl” Cook, Gwendolyn “Blondie” Chisolm, and Angie “Angie B” Brown Stone—met in high school as cheerleaders in Columbia, S.C. The Sequence also was America’s first Southern rap group and one of the first to seamlessly blend singing and rapping. Cheryl the Pearl also claims they were the first to utter “gangsta rap” (a style of hip-hop that emphasizes a violent lifestyle) lyrics in their song “And You Know That” (1980), which includes the line, “We’re not Con Funk Shun/We’re not the Gap/We’re the Sugar Hill girls with the gangsta rap.” And if the name Angie Stone rings a bell, it should: She went on to become a producer, actress, and neo-soul music icon with four top-10 albums.
Lauryn Hill
Many of the pioneers on the list date back to the 1970s and 1980s, but Lauryn Hill’s “Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” (1998)—one of the top-selling hip-hop and rap albums of all time—must be acknowledged. Often described as a “masterpiece” by music experts, Hill’s only solo studio album has received critical acclaim as a representation of life and serves as a standard within the neo-soul genre. According to Billboard magazine, the album “turned her into an icon, showcased her visionary talents as the sole writer-producer on almost every track, and taught a generation about the power of baring your soul through song.” “Miseducation” debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and has sold approximately eight million copies and counting. At the 41st Grammy Awards, the album earned her five awards, including Album of the Year and Best New Artist. Hill, raised mostly in South Orange, N.J., began singing with her music-oriented family. She was approached in high school by Prakazrel “Pras” Michel for a band he started, which his friend, Wyclef Jean, soon joined; the trio named themselves the Fugees and released the album “Blunted on Reality” (1994). But it was “The Score” (1996)—which won a Grammy for Best Rap Album and sold six million copies in the U.S.—that catapulted Hill to prominence via her African American and Caribbean music influences, rapping and singing skills, and rendition of the Roberta Flack hit “Killing Me Softly.” The Fugees split in 1997 and paved way for Hill’s groundbreaking, career-defining album.
This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.
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Trump Set to Sign Largest Cut to Medicaid After a Marathon Protest Speech by Leader Jeffries
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S.

By Lauren Burke
By a vote of 218 to 214, the GOP-controlled U.S. House passed President Trump’s massive budget and spending bill that will add $3.5 trillion to the national debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill also represents the biggest cut in Medicare in history and is a threat to the health care coverage of over 15 million people. The spending in Trump’s signature legislation also opens the door to a second era of over-incarceration in the U.S. With $175 billion allocated in spending for immigration enforcement, the money for more police officers eclipsed the 2026 budget for the U.S. Marines, which is $57 billion. Almost all of the policy focus from the Trump Administration has focused on deporting immigrants of color from Mexico and Haiti.
The vote occurred as members were pressed to complete their work before the arbitrary deadline of the July 4 holiday set by President Trump. It also occurred after Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries took the House floor for over 8 hours in protest. Leader Jeffries broke the record in the U.S. House for the longest floor speech in history on the House floor. The Senate passed the bill days before and was tied at 50-50, with Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski saying that, “my hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet.” There were no changes made to the Senate bill by the House. A series of overnight phone calls to Republicans voting against, not changes, was what won over enough Republicans to pass the legislation, even though it adds trillions to the debt. The Trump spending bill also cuts money to Pell grants.
“The Big Ugly Bill steals food out of the hands of starving children, steals medicine from the cabinets of cancer patients, and equips ICE with more funding and more weapons of war than the United States Marine Corps. Is there any question of who those agents will be going to war for, or who they will be going to war against? Beyond these sadistic provisions, Republicans just voted nearly unanimously to close urban and rural hospitals, cripple the child tax credit, and to top it all off, add $3.3 trillion to the ticking time bomb that is the federal deficit – all from a party that embarrassingly pretends to stand for fiscal responsibility and lowering costs,” wrote Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in a statement on July 3.
“The Congressional Budget Office predicts that 17 million people will lose their health insurance, including over 322,000 Virginians. It will make college less affordable. Three million people will lose access to food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). And up to 16 million students could lose access to free school meals. The Republican bill does all of this to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations,” wrote Education and Workforce Committee ranking member Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) in a statement. The bill’s passage has prompted Democrats to start thinking about 2026 and the next election cycle. With the margins of victory in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate being so narrow, many are convinced that the balance of power and the question of millions being able to enjoy health care come down to only several thousand votes in congressional elections. But currently, Republicans controlled by the MAGA movement control all three branches of government. That reality was never made more stark and more clear than the last seven days of activity in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate.

#NNPA BlackPress
Congressional Black Caucus Challenges Target on Diversity
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
Target is grappling with worsening financial and reputational fallout as the national selective buying and public education program launched by the Black Press of America and other national and local leaders continues to erode the retailer’s sales and foot traffic. But a recent meeting that the retailer intended to keep quiet between CEO Brian Cornell and members of the Congressional Black Caucus Diversity Task Force was publicly reported after the Black Press discovered the session, and the CBC later put Target on blast.
“The Congressional Black Caucus met with the leadership of the Target Corporation on Capitol Hill to directly address deep concerns about the impact of the company’s unconscionable decision to end a number of its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts,” CBC Chair Yvette Clarke stated. “Like many of the coalition leaders and partner organizations that have chosen to boycott their stores across the country, we found that the explanations offered by the leadership of the Target Corporation fell woefully short of what our communities deserve and of the values of inclusion that Target once touted,” Congresswoman emphasized. “Black consumers contribute overwhelmingly to our economy and the Target Corporation’s bottom line. Our communities deserve to shop at businesses that publicly share our values without sacrificing our dignity. It is no longer acceptable to deliver promises to our communities in private without also demonstrating those values publicly.”
Lauren Burke, Capitol Hill correspondent for Black Press of America, was present when Target CEO Cornell and a contingent of Target officials arrived at the U.S. Capitol last month. “It’s always helpful to have meetings like this and get some candid feedback and continue to evolve our thinking,” Cornell told Burke as he exited the meeting. And walked down a long hallway in the Cannon House Office Building. “We look forward to follow-up conversations,” he stated. When asked if the issue of the ongoing boycott was discussed, Cornell’s response was, “That was not a big area of focus — we’re focused on running a great business each and every day. Take care of our teams. Take care of the guests who shop with us and do the right things in our communities.”
A national public education campaign on Target, spearheaded by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), the NNPA’s board of directors, and with other national African American leaders, has combined consumer education efforts with a call for selective buying. The NNPA is a trade association that represents the more than 220 African American-owned newspapers and media companies known as the Black Press of America, the voice of 50 million African Americans across the nation. The coalition has requested that Target restore and expand its stated commitment to do business with local community-owned businesses inclusive of the Black Press of America, and to significantly increase investment in Black-owned businesses and media, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU, Black-owned Banks, national Black Church denominations, and grassroots and local organizations committed to improving the quality of life of all Americans, and especially those from underserved communities. According to Target’s latest earnings report, net sales for the first quarter of 2025 fell 2.8 percent to $23.85 billion compared to the same period last year. Comparable store sales dropped 3.8 percent, and in-store foot traffic slid 5.7 percent.
Shares of Target have also struggled under the pressure. The company’s stock traded around $103.85 early Wednesday afternoon, down significantly from roughly $145 before the controversy escalated. Analysts note that Target has lost more than $12 billion in market value since the beginning of the year. “We will continue to inform and to mobilize Black consumers in every state in the United States,” Chavis said. “Target today has a profound opportunity to respond with respect and restorative commitment.”
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