Gendering Voice

Through a discussion of Gotal, a women’s collective, this chapter shows how gendered analysis problematizes constructions of hip hop as a youth music. While young urban men experience a newfound mobility that allows the construction of widespread hip hop networks, familial and social concerns over female sexuality limit young women’s movements through public (hip hop) space. In focusing on expression in the public sphere, and in rejecting traditional music as easy and feminine, hip hop constructions of voice underestimate and effectively silence indigenous modes of female self-expression. Female rappers still seek to mobilize hip hop voice, however, and counter these narratives through discourses of family and work. Flipping the script on hip hop tropes of the underground, they position their own marginalization as a badge of hip hop authenticity.