This is the recurring problem with affirmative action. Its intent is good, but at times, it achieves the complete opposite. While it is supposed to encourage inclusion, it creates suspicion. One of the examples if the inflated interest for female rappers that took place just after the #MeToo era. The place of women in hip-hop history is not to be ignored – as far as I remember, I published an entire book to testify about this – and neither are the challenges that they face. But exaggerating their talents doesn't serve the cause. Music always loses, eventually, when militancy drives its agenda.
What have we been sold, indeed, over the last few years? Acceptable releases delivered by women, praised at the same levels as masterpieces delivered by men. The update of Rolling Stones's best 500 albums ever, is a good example. Also, regularly, new female rappers are marketed as the next big thing, while they are just OK. I might be wrong but, apart from one or two semi-bangers, Ice Spice, Saweetie, Megan Thee Stallion, Flo Milli and Latto all fail to impress me. To a certain extent, I just have a little bit of esteem for Glorilla.
At the end of the day, such over-attention is counterproductive. It makes us more dubious, cynical, and distrustful. And eventually, we end up ignoring the one female rapper, who is worth it. This almost happened with Sexyy Red.
Seen from afar, indeed, she's no more than another iteration of the main template that came to define the rap game for women. She is just another wild one, who is here to excite boys while pretending she has power over them. And she has the look of the day, with her red – or blonde, or blue – colored hair. Her only unusual apparel is her pair of glasses.
Also, the sudden buzz around her is quite suspect. It looks very much like a new product launch, operated by the music industry. While Janae Wherry has been rapping for years, she appeared suddenly in early 2023 along an established producer, Tay Keith, on the "Pound Town" single. Since then, she was seen with superstars such as Drake and Travis Scott, she was praised by Cardi B and Post Malone, and she reinterpreted the aforementioned song with Nicki Minaj.
However, on the ultimate track of her second mixtape, Hood Hottest Princess, the young lady compares herself with Gucci Mane. And this immediately restores her credit.
As a matter of fact, with her raspy voice, Sexxy Redd delivers the same excessively funny and funnily excessive raps as her model's, on simple but catchy piano sounds that Zaytoven would not disavow. She has the same deadpan humor, based on outrageous braggadocios. Some of them are about her watches, others about her cars or gold chains, but most talk about sex, Sexyy Red pretending to submit men to her desires, exactly like her male counterparts do with women.
"Pound Town" is a perfect example of this, with its sophisticated lyrics ("my coochie pink, my booty hole brown"...). Same with "Hellcats SRTs", about making love in a car. And "Mad At Me", where she talks about her sexual exigences.
This is dirty rap at its best.
And when Sexyy Red doesn't sound like a female Guwop, she is influenced by Memphis, with beats from DJ Paul and Juicy J on "Sexyy Walk", and the contribution of the latter on "Strictly For The Strippers", a strip club anthem that reappropriates Three 6 Mafia's "Sippin' On Some Syrup".
This is all fresh, amusing, irreverent, liberating, and with a few bangers, like "SkeeYee", about a salutation typical of Sexyy Red's city, St Louis, or her duo with Sukihana, about girls that just wanna have fun. Whoever delivers it, a man, a woman, or both, rap music should always sound like this.