365 Female* MCs becomes 365 Fe*male MCs

When this blog was founded, we wanted to show that women have always played a big role in hip hop and how important and diverse they still are today. We wanted to debunk sentences like “There are just few women who rap!” or “Rap is just not for women” and prove the opposite. We have learned a lot over the years and are still learning today. After all, this is exactly what we wanted to achieve with this project: Listening, learning, questioning and rethinking entrenched ideas – these are all processes that should never stop and that we, as editors, also regularly face. From the beginning, non-binary and trans* artists were also considered on the blog, as they are just as much an often ignored part of hip hop culture. However, this aspect was not sufficiently reflected in the naming of the project. At the same time, the discourses within the queer-feminist scene around the gender asterisk and terms like “female*” were decidedly continued. While the project generated more and more attention in the media as well as in the scene and drew attention to the diversity in rap, the first reflection processes began in the background: Who exactly is this blog about? Who do we really mean when we talk about “female*” MCs? But most importantly: How inclusive is the asterisk behind “female” at this very point? We quickly realized that the addition of an asterisk after the word “female” was well-intentioned but anything but purposeful. We understand that trans* and non-binary artists rightly feel excluded by this and that they don’t want to read posts about themselves in a blog that reports “about women*”. What for some unaffected people is just a star moving four places to the left, means a newly created identification space for others. For this reason, 365 Female* MCs becomes 365 Fe*male MCs from now on. With the asterisk between “fe” and “male”, we want to create a space that stands between the binary genders and make clear that we also want to offer non-binary, inter* and trans* people a place in this project. 

It represents an absolute privilege on our part that even though we knew that the name as it is does not accurately represent or name non-binary and trans identities, we have not yet adapted or changed the name. It has been on our to-do list for a long time and has been postponed again and again due to the fact that we often run far beyond our own limits with this voluntary project and simply do not have the capacity to follow up such findings with action. This poor of prioritization – meaning well, but not doing well – is another expression of our privilege as a team consisting mainly of cis people. #reflectyourownprivileges Recognizing this, too, is a process we want to address transparently.

For this reason, we would like to thank all the people who have brought this grievance to our attention and who not only follow this blog every day, but also work to make it better and better. Your feedback is not only read – it is urgently desired, because only loud voices from the community help us make a better blog and a more equitable hip hop community- for everyone.