In the mid-to-late 2000s, the women of the Twin Cities hip-hop community united. For one weekend each summer, they took over Intermedia Arts for B-Girl Be, a celebration of female MCs, DJs, b-girls, and graffiti artists. Starting in 2005 (with a year off in ’08), B-Girl Be allowed women in hip-hop to connect, perform, and create together, inspiring local activity and building international influence.

Now, the festival’s organizers have decided that it’s time to evolve. The B-Girl Be banner has been passed to a series of Intermedia Arts-sponsored workshops and camps for young girls to learn about hip-hop, and the artists and activists who celebrated each year must find their place within the Twin Cities scene as a whole.

Women remain a minority in that scene—in its clubs, on its record labels, at its festivals. At the same time, the sexism and objectification of women in mainstream commercial rap doesn’t necessarily translate to a community as deep, active, and frequently progressive as the Twin Cities’. We asked women MCs from Minneapolis and St. Paul about their experience, and they told us in their own words.

Tish Jones is a spoken word artist, MC, teacher, and community organizer. She has hosted open mics around the Twin Cities, including the Midwest Youth All-Star series, which will send qualifiers to tour a new spoken word and hip-hop arts program at the University of Wisconsin.

Tish
One of the first pieces of writing that caught my attention was this play in second grade that my science teacher gave me. She was like the after-school specialist, so we had this group after school, and she brought this play, and it was called Rap-unzel. It was Rapunzel, obviously, but it was all in rap, bars through the whole thing, and it was tight. So that’s probably when I was like, “Oh yeah, snap, this is tight,” in terms of thinking that I could write it and perform it well. She let me keep it and I read the whole thing front to back like a million times, and just thought it was dope.

Desdamona has been an MC, spoken word artist, and community organizer in the Twin Cities for over 15 years. She was one of the founding members of B-Girl Be. Her new single and video, “The Come Back,” drops September 13.

Desdamona
I was making some music with a couple friends, and two of us, actually, moved up here to pursue music. It took me a good six to 10 months to figure out how to get in on the scene here. The first time I got onstage in the Twin Cities, interestingly enough, was the First Ave Mainroom. My friend invited me to the Coolio concert. I’d never been to First Ave before, and even though I was into hip-hop, I wasn’t into Coolio. But then, at a certain point in the show, he invited people to come up onstage, so I got up onstage, and there was another female MC who is local here named Protege, and she was up there, too. We both got up and rapped, and the crowd was really into it. That was the very first time I got onstage.

Because she didn’t know any musicians or DJs at first, Desdamona broke into the scene by performing her lyrics at open mic nights as spoken word. Read more