Last month, Remy Ma was a headliner at Hot 97’s annual Summer Jam concert. At the time, she was beefing with Nicki Minaj, but in an effort to send the message that female rappers should support and uplift one another (Remy claimed their beef started because Minaj tried to play with her money and throw sly disses), she brought out a number of fellow female MCs to perform. Queen Latifah was one of those people.
While promoting her new film, Girls Trip, and speaking on Ebro in the Morning, Queen Latifah talked about how amazing that moment was for her. When asked how she felt about people online who tried to say that those women were, in a sense, taking Remy’s side in the drama, she said such opinions didn’t matter to her.
“I didn’t really care you know what I mean? I didn’t even really think about,” Latifah said. “People can think and say whatever they want to say. This wasn’t really a moment for all of that. It was a moment for us and for Hip-Hop. It’s room for all of that.”
According to Latifah, she was actually disappointed to see how many female rappers weren’t having their records played or being given much recognition over the last few years. She told Ebro Darden that there’s room for everyone to shine and when they’re able to, Hip-Hop is better — and a lot more fun.
“I support females in Hip-Hop. I always have, I always will” she said. “There’s room for all of us. Nobody to my knowledge that’s younger than me invented this. So you don’t get to claim it, you don’t get to rule it. This is all of ours. My name is Queen. What, am I supposed to get into it with everybody throwing the queen thing around? C’mon, it’s stupid. I’m not going there with that. All I care about is that females who rap get to have their records played. Their voices get to be heard. Because for a minute, it was like nothing. Nicki was like the only one practically and that was never cool with me. I’m like, what about everybody else? This can’t be a movement — we can’t keep this thing going with one person. We need a bunch of us. When I was out it was me, it was Lyte, it was Monie, Salt-N-Pepper. You could jump on each other’s records. Kim jumped on this record with this one, with Brat, and then Foxy would jump on this one and then they jumped on it together with Missy. And Eve. It’s always great when there’s a bunch of us doing this so we can all elevate it at the same time. Because we’re outnumbered, yes, we get that. But when we cut through we make a statement. You know we’re there. It’s always been like that. If 20 guys get through and one girl gets through, they’re going to still stick with her because she stands out from the pack. But we don’t have to have these small numbers. We all need to be out there. It makes it all much more fun. And we make records that guys don’t make necessarily. We need that flavor in Hip-Hop.”
Without that “flavor,” Latifah says things get boring. And it would help too if the men in the game gave their female fans some TLC.
“The music suffers. The music to me really does suffer and the music did suffer for a really long time,” Latifah said. “Even guys, they’ve got to get in touch with their feminine side. I don’t know if they realize how many female Hip-Hop lovers are out here or what you’re giving and passing on, but you gotta get with it.”
Check out her interview with Ebro in the Morning below and her comments about Hip-Hop, which start around the 26:00 mark.
The post Queen Latifah Says Nicki And Remy “Don’t Get To Claim” Female Rap: “This Is All Of Ours” appeared first on MadameNoire.