Today, we look to female rappers to be bosses. Fans check for the records they break, the charts they top, and the Louboutins they wear as evidence that women belong in hip-hop, too. Nicki Minaj’s pop crossover and Cardi B.’s chart-breaking success stories sell us on glitz and glamour We like their humble beginnings, not for what they reveal about the relationship that these women have with music and hip-hop, but because they make their achievements seem even greater. Conversations about women in rap are often a dialogue about ‘firsts,’ ‘bests,’ and ‘greatests.’ Afterall, Roxanne Shanté was the first big female name in rap, and that’s likely why she got the biopic treatment. But an unfortunate side effect of this narrow focus on only the height of femcee careers is that we miss out on the role that Black women play in shaping hip-hop history as a whole.