Several years ago, I was invited to a ladies of hip-hop showcase at the now defunct venue Sputnik over on Classon Avenue in Crown Heights, and it’s been a show that I still talk about for a number of reasons – but the two immediate reasons (for the purposes of this post) were two of the best emcees I saw live that year, New York’s own Jean Grae and the Toronto, ON-based Eternia, who had bought a home province-based contingent with her to Brooklyn.  And yet, shamefully, hip-hop much like rock have pushed women to margins; in fact, as far as the mainstream world is concerned, women artists are at best a curious anomaly. 

So when I saw that a Queens-based producer DJ JS-1 collaborated with Dynasty, Eternia and Sara Kana on a track titled “Give A Damn,” I had to check it out and as it turns out, the track is real, raw hip-hop – self-assured emcees spitting fire over dope beats.  It doesn’t and shouldn’t really matter that they’re women; in fact, what should matter is that from this track, each emcee has skills that shouldn’t be fucked with.