Sistas Ready to Rock for Female Respect

By Richard Harrington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2007

Bahamadia, the Philadelphia-born hip-hop artist who will kick off the third annual Can a Sista Rock a Mic? festival Wednesday at the Rock and Roll Hotel with 16-year-old local sensation Emoni Fela, calls it "unique in what it represents as far as the camaraderie between female artists and entrepreneurs . . . and the different energies all coming together. I haven't heard of anything similar in terms of the showcase aspects of it."

That's because the festival, held in several locations, is an embracing m ix of local and national talent, established artists and newcomers, singers and MCs, DJs and spoken-word artists. It also looks to highlight positive images of women, countering prevailing images in the mainstream media, where women are sexualized, made to appear as "hard" as their male counterparts or reduced to singing hooks on those artists' recordings. Lately, some female hip-hop artists have been more active in tabloids than in recording studios. (Can you say Remy Ma, Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim?)

Vocalist Afi, who has been with CASRAM since its origin as monthly B-Girl Manifesto shows, says, "From the beginning, we got sick and tired of females being represented in only one way. We felt there were so many other types of representations than what we saw on the videos or on TV, where there was a very low respect for females. We wanted to show that women are beautiful and women are sexy, but we can show ourselves in a positive manner and still get that same type of attention."

"Everybody has a right to express and represent themselves the way they want," Afi says. "My problem is when it's not an equal playing field where everyone is allowed to represent who they are. Fortunately, we have people like Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Angie Stone, Alicia Keyes, who are representing women in a positive manner, but when we started, a lot of those people weren't even getting played."

Bahamadia adds: "Everything has its place and its time. For me, the reality has been that women of substance, creating quality music and art overall, have always existed, but we haven't had as much media coverage consistently over time that our counterparts have had."

And that, says CASRAM founder Kimani Anku, "is my mission, my goal: to give that balance to anybody who wants to hear the good stuff as opposed to the junk. The key is try to save the kids; if they're listening to that stuff now, we're in bad shape. Music is my life, and I want to be able to give it back to the young people."

CASRAM's roots are in an Internet radio show hosted by Anku, who works for public access DCTV. "In 1999, I decided to do all female hip-hop artists for March because it was women's history month," he recalls, "and that was our biggest show ever. We got over a million hits to that page, and I thought maybe I should build something around that."

The following year, Anku and partner Brandon Felton organized B-Girl Manifesto, a series of monthly live shows at various locations, clearly inspired by Black Lily, the Philadelphia women's music showcase that launched Jill Scott, Jaguar Wright and Floetry.

"That first show, I was walking the streets looking for local female hip-hop artists," Anku admits. He found Lakisha McCoy (who has since moved to New York) and built a show around her at the then-empty Hechinger's building on Wisconsin Avenue as part of Artomatic. Anku publicized the free event via e-mail, posters and handouts.

"We had 500 people come out -- that was exciting. People said, 'We need this,' so I kept doing it. I didn't want to, but so many female MCs and singers and spoken-word artists and DJs kept coming up to me after the first event that I turned it into B-Girl Manifesto."

That was how Anku met then-10-year-old Fela. "A poet brought her to do a spoken-word show," Anku recalls, adding that "she is now a beast on the microphone. She opened for KRS-One at the Black Cat in May and tore it down with a live band."

"My most exciting moment, hands down," says Fela, who has shared stages with rapper Talib Kweli and spoken-word artist Ursula Rucker. "He already knew who I was, which was another overwhelming experience, and he actually took the time to talk to me and exchange info. It was really amazing."

Fela says she didn't necessarily grow up listening to hip-hop -- "and I'm not the biggest hip-hop fan" -- but was inspired in her early passion for poetry by Lauryn Hill, "still to this day an amazing artist, proud of her womanhood, who wears femininity on her sleeve and is still dropping the hardest rhymes alongside the dudes."

Since age 13, Fela has also been a DJ at local clubs, and she says that "part of that is knowing your history. I started looking up other sisters -- Mystic, Monie Love, Queen Latifah, the Real Roxanne [Shante], MC Lyte and Bahamadia," with whom she'll share the stage Wednesday. Fela, who is working on her first album, a mixture of poetry and music, says that "there is a lack of female energy in hip-hop, where either you're very masculine and over here with the dudes or you're just degrading yourself. There's no in between anymore, and that really pushes me to keep doing what I do."

Afi (pronounced ah-FEE) will be releasing her debut album, "Lovely," during the Aug. 12 grand finale at Zanzibar on the Waterfront headlined by MC Lyte, who will perform with a live band and a DJ and has committed to doing a lot of her classics. The Queens-born rapper, who in 1989 spat, "I'm the dopest female that you've heard thus far," was one of the first female rappers to address sexism and misogyny in hip-hop. She has a MySpace page, Hiphop Sisters, that encourages female MCs from around the world to come together.

Another local singer, Alison Carney, is working on a solo album and one with her band Solystik. Carney, who passed on one major label deal because of discomfort with how they wanted to present her, says that "as a female artist, I feel there's a lot of pressure to conform, to be highly sexualized, to be a little more risque than I would like to be. One thing about this festival is it's really about female empowerment; I'm not a feminist by any means, but it's really great to see strong, powerful women who are doing their own music, whether its hip-hop, R&B, soul, rock, art installations. The majority of us are doing it independently, and a lot of us are doing extremely well."

Other CASRAM participants include Sy Smith (who calls her music "futuristic soul"), a D.C. native and Howard University grad now based in Los Angeles doing music direction for late-night talk shows; Yahzarah and Tiye Phoenix, local singers who have since moved to North Carolina and New Jersey, respectively; and Carol Riddick, a Philly soul singer who has appeared on records with Musiq, Jill Scott, Kindred and Anthony Hamilton. Riddick is making her Washington debut, as is Georgia Anne Muldrow, a West Coast singer who melds classic soul, jazz and hip-hop. She will perform with husband Dudley Perkins (a singer with Madlib) and their 15-year-old daughter.

Bahamadia, who first gained notice as a protege of Gang Starr's Guru -- he, partner DJ Premier and the Roots co-produced her 1996 debut, "Kollage" -- says: "Some people make a conscious decision to make music that's going to appeal to a certain demographic, and certain people desire to break into the mainstream, and in order to do this there's a certain formula. There's also a way you can create music of substance and quality without compromising your integrity or your moral standards and beliefs. It's a scenic route," she says with a chuckle, "but it's one that can be traveled."

Which Anku hopes to do next year, taking Can a Sista Rock a Mic? on the road to five cities "with a lot of D.C. artists and hooking up with people in those different cities."

THE SCHEDULE

Wednesday at 7, Rock and Roll Hotel: LadyBeat Maker competition; DJ Earth1ne, ArtByLiz, Emoni Fela, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Bahamadia.

Thursday at 7, Cue Bar: Remedy Lounge with DJ Fusion and DJ Earth1ne.

Aug. 10 at 7, Republic Gardens: Sy Smith, Yahzarah, Carol Riddick, Alison Carney, DJ Cuzzin B, DJ Uncle Q.

Aug. 11, 4 to 9, Arts Alley in Silver Spring between Mayorga and Gallery: DJ Frances Jaye, DJ Earth1ne, L'Renee, Stephanie McKay and more, including an all-female band and jam session.

Aug. 12 at 6, Zanzibar on the Waterfront: Choklate, Davina, Afi and MC Lyte.

Go tohttp://www.canasistarockamic.comfor more than 30 sound bites featuring this year's participating artists, as well as many from previous CASRAM festivals.