Women in rap have always had an uphill battle, in that even female rap fans don’t seem to be particularly interested in hearing girls rapping if record sales are anything to go by. White chicks in rap have the natural advantage of still being enough of a gimmick that it’s easier to overlook things like not being able to stay on beat and point at them like, ‘Aw, ain’t that adorable?’ in much the same way as seeing photos of little kids smoking is equal parts tragic and cool at the same time.
If you were an even vaguely progressive band in New York City in the early eighties, you had at least a vague awareness of the hip-hop craze sweeping the club scene. By the same token, if you were involved with the downtown club scene then you probably knew Fab 5 Freddy, who was involved in two major moments in early White Girl Rap development. Blondie’s Deborah Harry dropped rhymes like dimes on the ‘Rapture’ single, providing a wonderful name-drop for Grandmaster Flash to use while also contributing the first and last chapter in the genre of Car Eating Rap. Meanwhile, Fred recruited another Saltine Queen for the b-side version of his ‘Change The Beat’ single on Celluloid – the appropriately monikered Beside, who would release a couple of more electro singles in the following years. Since Beside was unleashing her lyrics of fury in French, I can’t really pass judgement on her merit as a microphone mistress, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.
It took Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club fame, to really step to the plate. While Deb Harry had put in a solid display with two verses, Tina topped her efforts by dropping two pieces of musical heat rock on the same LP. ‘Genius of Love’ went on to become a beloved breakbeat and much sampled classic, while Tina also made a full-length rap song titled ‘Wordy Rappinghood,’ which is part playground chant, part beat poetry slam and all amazingly bizarre.
The late, great Teena Marie was not content with being Soul Train‘s favorite white songstress, she also tried her hand at rapping on the classic ‘Square Biz,’ calling herself Lady T, as was the style at the time. Closing off the eighties, Puffy Dee made absolutely zero noise with Tuff City curio ‘Joe Blow,’ but it holds up as an entertaining piece of the Pumpkin production puzzle, as Minnie Mouse meets the LinnDrum.
Following a stint in a cheesy euro-pop group, Tarrie B landed a deal with Ruthless Records imprint Comptown Records, where she was marketed as a cross between a rapping Madonna and an Italian mobster moll. At some point she fell-out with Dr. Dre and decided to dedicate a verse on her album’s final track calling him a ‘faggot’ for wearing sequins during his Wreckin’ Cru days. After Andre caught wind of her talking trash about him, he decided to make like Terminator X and speak with his hands.
Meanwhile, the massive pop success of Vanilla Ice resulted in a mad run of white rapper signings. One of these was a peppy young lady who adopted the moniker of Icy Blu and sampled Salt ‘N Pepa’s ‘Push It’ for her single ‘Pump It’ (Nice N Hard). According to her Wikipedia page, the song was so warmly received in Australia and New Zealand that it cracked the top ten in both countries. Sadly for Ms. Blu, U.S. rap fans weren’t as enthusiastic. On the other side of the Atlantic, a former member of the She Rockers named Betty Boo found chart success after featuring on a single by The Beatmasters, which resulted in her releasing a dance rap album which spawned the dancefloor smash ‘Doin’ The Doo,’ which was for all intents and purposes exactly the same song as ‘Monie In The Middle.’ An unfortunate failed lip-synch performance in Melbourne, Australia saw her booed off stage and that was that for Ms. Boo.
After finding massive pop superstardom as a new addition to the Black Eyed Peas roster, Fergie embarked on a solo side project featuring an enjoyable rip-off of ‘Hollaback Girl’ courtesy of Polow The Don titled ‘London Bridge,’ which was almost enough of a distraction to forgive her for ‘My Humps.’ Princess Superstar apparently conceded that the challenge of rapping in time with the music was beyond her and introduced an ironic, post-rhythmic flow that saw her cram words over the beat in a freewheelin’ fashion. By the time she released her third album in 2001, she was able to rope in Kool Keith, J-Zone and the High and Mighty to help her out.
More recently, dinky di Ozzie sheila Iggy Azalea landed herself a job as a weed holder for T.I. and bagged herself the incredibly catchy beat for ‘Fancy,’ making her a huge star in the process. Unfortunately she squandered the opportunity and delivered a luke-warm debut album which wasted the majority of it’s playing time reminding us how proud she was of herself for saving up for a plane ticket to Miami when she was sixteen by mopping floors and being a check-out chick. We geddit, already. After a video of her misguided attempt at live freestyling at show surfaced and T.I. washed his hands of the Ig-ster, she was reduced to returning Down Under to judge The X Factor. Sure, she really mangled that faux-Southern drawl to comical levels as a rapper, but no one deserves that kind of indignity.
Finally, we have Lil’ Debbie, who despite having the misfortune of once being associated with no-talent scenester hacks V-Nasty and Kreayshawn, has gone on to make some amusingly Too $hort meets Jersey Shore rap over the past three or four years. Say what you will about her rapping abilities, but ‘LOFTY’ is to my ears the sole decent addition to the abomination that is Cloud Rap.
Download: A Salute To White Gal Rap
01 ‘Rapture’ [Special Disco Mix] – Blondie
02 ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ [12 Inch Mix] – Tom Tom Club
03 ‘Square Biz’ – Teena Marie
04 ‘Change The Beat’ – Fab 5 Freddy feat. Beside
05 ‘Joe Blow’ – Puffy Dee
06 ‘Ruthless Bitch’ – Tarrie B
07 ‘My Guitar’s Funky’ – Icy Blu
08 ‘Doin’ The Do’ – Betty Boo
09 ‘Bad Babysitter’ – Princess Superstar feat. Mr. Eon
10 ‘London Bridge’ – Fergie
11 ‘Fancy’ – Iggy Azalea feat. Charli XCX
12 ‘LOFTY’ – Lil Debbie