Its tough being apart of a Male Dominated movement were you have to compete vocally towards another female Emcee by trashing and dragging her through the mud. Battling is the part of Hip Hop Culture however female Emcees are encourage to attack then to display their lyrical skills.
Females in Hip Hop represent more then music they represent a movement of Emcees, Dancers, Graffiti Writers, Dj’s, Educators, Activist, Philosopher, Professors, Psychologist, Therapist, and more.
Today we Celebrate our Hip Hop SisHer, Our Queen:
Toni Blackman (Hip Hop Educator and Historian)
Please read her Bio.
Photo:By Keith Rogers
Toni Blackman is a poet, rap lyricist and actress. She was the first Hip Hop artist selected to work as a Cultural Ambassador traveling with the US Department of State. Toni has traveled throughout Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia, often working in some of the world’s most war-torn nation states to help bring reconciliation and rehabilitation to those regions. Affectionately known as America’s Hip Hop Ambassador, Blackman has visited 22 different countries and worked in others via digital satellite.
Highly respected as the founder of Freestyle Union, a cipher workshop that uses freestyling as a tool to encourage social responsibility, Lyrical Embassy, a project which she runs, serves as the umbrella for Freestyle Union and for Rhyme Like A Girl – an initiative for girls and women. A former Echoing Green Fellow and Soros Fellow, her work promotes diplomacy and self-expression through the use of cutting-edge personal development technique.
Recognized as a pioneer in Hip Hop theater and education, this award-winning artist has shared the stage with everyone from Erykah Badu, the Roots, Wu Tang, Sonia Sanchez, Sara McLachlan and Rickie Lee Jones. Her book Inner-Course (Villard/Random House), which was released in 2003, appears in the award-winning anthology Live Through This (Seven Stories Press, 2008), her memoir, “Travels of a Lyrical Ambassador”, will be released on The Feminist Press late 2010 and she is a contributor to Jay Z: The Artist, The Man, The Visionary. In 2009 she was featured in VH1’s Future of Black History ad campaign, in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and was presented by 651 Arts. Toni’s recent travel included Italy, France and Azerbaijan (Baku) where she spoke at the Pio Manzu International Conference, which was held last October 24 and which featured Mikhail Gorbachev as one of the prime organizers – an event during which she has had the serendipity to befriend a woman from the UN who also introduced her to a couple from Baku. Out of that cultural exchange came up an opportunity for her to go to Baku and worked there on a project which involved performing and developing awareness of Hip Hop at an international level. Additionally, she is producing a Rhyme Like A Girl project with teen girls from Liberia, Sudan, Somalia and the U.S. during her artist residency with Jefferson Arts Center in Virginia, and also completing related projects for the Travels of a Lyrical Ambassador brand.
Website http://www.toniblackman.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ToniBlackman4/
HIP HOP EDUCATION 4 YOUTH 