One of the most prominent rap songs of the early nineties in Nigeria was by a woman. The song “Allen Avenue”,  off Weird MC’s Simply Weird album, had three verses capturing the danger lurking beneath the glitz of the Lagos hub, relying on the bass in the rapper’s voice and a head-nodding, but under-produced beat that barely whispered its presence – nothing at all like today’s Nigerian party anthems. The hook, repeating “Allen Avenue” monotonously as though it were a mantra, ensured the song never left your head. The careful enunciation reminiscent of late eighties rap recalls an era where one’s pride was more in lyrical prowess than in bling.

Even more than the catchiness of the song, Weird MC made sense. All the hip-hop we knew then was from the U.S., where female rappers were either tomboys like Da Brat embodying Girl Power before Spice Girls coined the phrase, or hyper-sexual vixens attached to dominant male forces who, while clearly being skilled lyricist like Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim, always seemed to know better than to compete directly with male rappers. Today, even in her most braggadocio moments, Nicki Minaj will only refer to “rap bitches”. Queen Latifah, more of a tomboy when she ruled the nineties, only ever went after men for wack pick-up lines a la “Fly Girl” or patriarchy in “U.N.I.T.Y”. Left Eye, part of the trio TLC, was equally narrow in her approach, restricting her lines to within the confines of the pop-R’n’B group’s songs. Like the female rappers she undoubtedly looked up to, Weird MC did not seem too concerned about challenging other rappers out of their cocoons. She did not celebrate her place behind any man; indeed there was no man to be behind. All there was was her.

Weird MC stood out because Nigerian music at the time, for the most part, was a lot more Nigerian. Old-timers still danced to Victor Uwaifo and King Sunny Ade. Major hits were high-life inspired one like “Baby Walakolombo” and “Fuel for Love” respectively. Younger people listened to Blakky, a University of Lagos student at the time who sang catchy songs about love and women. Of course, Fela Kuti was a genre all his own, and loomed large well into the decade. As the nineties wore on, Sunny Nneji and Lagbaja would also gain prominence. The only Nigerian music clearly inspired from the outside was reggae, both by Rastafarian purists Majek Fashek and Ras Kimono, and from the infamous Lagos slum Ajegunle’s special brand of dancehall-inspired music. Even with this burgeoning music scene, American music ruled the airwaves. And when young people started paying attention, male rappers, of course, dominated.

It is difficult for women to thrive in hip-hop. Even in America, what few female rappers there are tend to spend entire careers in the underground, or allow themselves to be more cartoonishly-drawn than their male counterparts. Where there can be something of a balance in the persona of male rappers – Nas and Ghostface are not always “money, cash, hoes” types of rappers, for example, and neither is, more recently, J. Cole and Drake – there is no model for female rappers’ complexity. Foxy or Lil’ Kim do not have images that allow them to switch from rapping about parties and sex to rapping about more serious topics like, Eve’s “Love Is Blind” or Jean Grae’s “Still a Love Song.”

Except for Weird MC, female rappers got sexier. Da Brat traded in the twists and basketball jerseys for bikinis on the beach in Miami for a sexy music video with Tyrese. Left Eye, along with the rest of TLC, ushered in a sexier image for the group for CrazySexyCool. Even Queen Latifah got sexier; she got in on the R’n’B act for one of her later albums. Weird MC, of course, couldn’t do any of these things. She came too early to see Eve rise to fore in 2001, and she probably would not have known where to begin with Eve’s sexy, albeit toned-down, image. There was nowhere for her to go. And she never did release another successful rap album.

Nigeria, of course, presents a unique set of problems. Women’s bodies are often the battleground for Africa’s modern identity crisis, so it should not surprise anyone that what cultural progress Nigeria has made over the past few decades has benefited, almost exclusively, men. Femi Kuti’s award-winning “Beng Beng Beng” would not have been banned had it been released in 2011, but women are still caught between the notion of traditional roles and expected behaviors which, then, affects the kinds of representations of women one can find in music. We all see the results of this: Lynxxx can rap about sexual healing and have women on his hotel bed for the video of “Alabukun”; Banky W can have the steamy video for “Follow You Go”; Terry G can have his innuendos for “Knock You Akpako”; D’Banj can talk about his sexual experiences in “Why Me”; but Tiwa Savage got her “Love Me” video got some heat for being too sexy, and St. Janet’s album gets banned for raciness.

There is more diversity in the personas that women adopt in other kinds of music, and the result is the same as in the U.S.; less women rap. Weird MC herself has emerged recently with a new album and two lead singles (both videos above), neither of which feature her rapping. But across genres, the care with which these women package themselves and the “tidiness” of their subject matter remains.

While American female rappers have the benefit of a more defined cultural ground, it is not so clear for Nigeria. This is a country very much in transition in our cultural history, wanting to move forward but casting too many sidelong glances at the past. Perhaps we will see a woman break barriers in Nigerian music when we decide what these barriers are.

Story by OKA contributor Saratu Abiola