‘Hip hop feminism’ was first coined by US journalist and scholar Joan Morgan in 1999 in her ground-breaking book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip Hop Feminist. She created a remix of Black feminism that openly interrogates the contradictions of being a Black woman and a feminist who loves hip hop and who also critiques the masculine, often sexist culture. Since then, several generations of hip hop feminists have continued to theorize the roles and lived experiences of Black women and women of colour, queer people and other minoritized groups in hip hop. In this presentation, I argue that these critical perspectives can be applied to various hip hop scenes if we remain mindful of the contextual shift and critically analyse how societal power structures such as normative whiteness shape hip hop.

This presentation discusses contemporary feminist women rappers in Finland and how they talk about their intersecting identities vis-à-vis perceived norms in Finnish and global rap music. During its 40-year-long history, Finnish rap has been dominated by middle-class white men; this differentiates Finland from many European countries where largely working-class communities of colour have been central to the development of local rap scenes. In recent years, however, more and more rappers of colour, women, and LGBTQ+ artists have entered the Finnish scene, challenging the white heterosexual male norm. The presentation is based on the ongoing project “Women rappers in Finland – The multimodal construction of hip hop feminism, gender, race, and whiteness” (Research Council of Finland, 2021–24). 

Biography

Dr. Inka Rantakallio works as a postdoctoral researcher in Musicology at the University of Helsinki. Her publications deal with the various intersections of rap music, identities, worldviews, and ideologies. She is the co-editor of three books that focus on hip hop culture, hip hop feminism, and musical meaning. Rantakallio also works as a freelance journalist/editor and DJ.