title: Black women queering the mic: Missy Elliott disturbing the boundaries of racialized sexuality and gender.
abstract: Though there were and always have been djs, dancers, graffiti artists, and rappers who were Black women, they are placed on the periphery of hip-hop culture; their voices, along with "gay rappers" and "white rappers" devalued and their contribution to the global rise of hip-hop either forgotten or eschewed. This article is an attempt to articulate the existence of Black women who work outside of the paradigms of the "silence, secrecy, and a partially self-chosen invisibility" that Evelynn Hammonds describes. At the center of this article lies an attempt to locate a new configuration and expression of desire and sexuality, opening a door, wide open, to gain a different view of Black women, their sexuality, their expression of it, and the complexities that arise when they attempt to express it in hip hop nation language.
authors: Department of Anthropology, American University, Washington, DC 20016, USA. can.lane@gmail.com
authors: Nikki
authors: N
authors: Lane
mesh_terms: D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D009146:Music; D019529:Sexuality; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology