. . . You know them hoes be at my show, grabbin’ where my chain go/

I’m tryna rap and hold my pants, but these hoes won’t let my thang go/

Oh don’t you know I fuck with fine dimes that look like Pamela/

They fine and they hot bruh, when I’m in the spot bruh/

Yuh, yuh, I party like a rockstar!

. . . White bitches wanna marry me, they see me they jus’ might panic/

My ice make ‘em go down quick, jus’ like the Titanic . . .

A few weeks ago, I saw a young black woman wearing a bright purple shirt that said “PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR,” an ode, of course, to the song by the Shop Boyz, a rap trio from Atlanta, Georgia. I had seen the video a few times on television, but never listened closely to the lyrics. This young woman compelled me to take a look, and, as per usual with most rap videos that are shown on MTV and BET, I felt my usual case of disappointment. The Shop Boyz were equating partying like their white rocker counterparts with the objectification of women’s bodies, which they seemed to characterize as disposable rock star accessories.

Their mention of women in this way, as little more than gold-digging whores, reminded me of a rarely discussed aspect of the long term discussion on the status of hip hop. When scholars, professors, rap moguls, fans, and critics discussed how rap frequently demeaned women, setting women of color back centuries with regard to their representation in popular media, others, like writer/intellectual Michael Eric Dyson encouraged us not to forget sexism in other facets of American life—in the household, in the church, in the corporate world. What was left out of the discussion, however, was the almost parallel treatment of women in rock n’ roll. Women were characterized as groupies (hence the Shop Boyz co-opting the same imagery for their lyrics and video) in songs and videos to mirror the real lifestyle of rock performers, began to wonder why these men were not criticized alongside rappers in the same forums about images of women in music.

But in my contemplation on this subject, I realized that rock n’ roll and rap music had even more similarities beyond the visual. While they both tended to demean women, their respective histories told a very different story, one with women as collaborators and creators in the foundation of and continued success of both styles of music. Black women, though fewer in number than their male counterparts, continue to actively engage in the rap music industry and a few female rap artists, though they have decreased dramatically since the early 1990s, still manage to make the charts. With that said, female emcees remain on the radar for the sake of popular media consumption

When it comes to rock, however, it’s another story.

Black women played a pivotal role in rock n’ roll before it even had a name, yet their work is rarely credited. To add insult to injury, the fact that blacks could be considered the creators of rock n’ roll is often forgotten in popular discourses on rock. The very fact that the Shop Boyz looked to white rock performers as the inspiration for their video is ironic. In the 1950s, the pierced and tattooed white men they consider rock star/fan role models in their video could have been replaced by middle aged black men and women, be-boppers and do-woppers with pompadour hairstyles and sparkly shoes. They would look to people like Little Richard, Betty Davis, James Brown, Big Mama Thornton, Bessie Smith, and Jimi Hendrix as opposed to Tommy Lee, Kid Rock, Bret Michaels, Ozzie Osbourne, and Steven Tyler.

Many black artists have sought to remind the American public about the roots of rock, including Lenny Kravitz, who in an interview with Jet Magazine from 2002 noted that while he was happy rock music had been embraced by people of many backgrounds, the history seemed to have been lost:

Music has no color. It should be shared by everyone, but if we want to be technical about it, rock and roll started out as Black music, but people tend to forget that . . . Blacks invented rock n’ roll.

Documentary filmmaker James Spooner, who is best known for his award-winning film Afro-Punk: The Rock n Roll Nigger Experience (more commonly known as “Afro-Punk”), has also made a concerted effort to document the involvement of blacks in rock and to expose American audiences to the black presence as both fans and artists in the rock scene. And while Spooner does not delve into a solid history of punk rock in the short film, it’s important to note that even punk rock, a harder, more edgy genre of rock that is often completely dissassociated from blacks as it is known to be less melodic and danceable (characteristics oft-associated with black music and dance), has a close connection to black music brought to the UK by West Indian immigrants who lived in close quarters with the white British lower class. In his book Subculture: The Meaning of Style, sociologist Dick Hebdige is quick to note that though both groups were often at odds in their struggle for resources, their interaction led to longevous hybrid cultural expressions via music, fashion, and language.

Sociologist George Lipsitz has also documented the power of marginality in the creation of subculture, in this case, as it relates to the involvement of Latinos involved in the rock scene:

Because their experience demands bifocality, minority group culture reflects the decentered and fragmented nature of contemporary human experience. Because their history identifies the sources of their marginality, minority group cultures have a legitimacy and connection to the past that distinguishes them from more assimilated groups. Masters of irony in an ironic world, they often understand that their marginality makes them more appropriate spokespersons for society than mainstream groups unable to fathom or address the causes of their alienation.

Though his observations relate primarily to the study he did on Mexicans in Los Angeles, the overall conclusion is just one example of how subculture, such as backs in rock, largely contribute to mainstream genres, taken on by majority groups.

Going against all the odds, black women in rock defied gender norms and race-based restrictions in the past, and continue to influence the music behind the scenes. Our country may not be ready to acknowledge the countless contributions black women have made to rock n’ roll, but I am a firm believer in giving people credit when it’s due.