Cdot The Catalyst is a dope lyricist who I’ve been chatting with on Twitter and iChat since last year. She’s cool, uber smart, talented, and well, definitely under exposed. We’ve had so many great talks and I love her irreverence and snark so much that I wanted her to submit this piece explaining her identity as a “femcee.” (I was supposed to post this months ago as part of a project that I never really got off the ground but that’s another story). Check out C Dot The Catalyst as she breaks down her disdain for the “f word” (femcee) and why Nicki Minaj gives her hope…

Words By C Dot The Catalyst

Apparently the tweets is watchin’ and reading my mind because I noticed a trending topic that read #becauseofnickiminaj…now aside from reading the obvious comments about chipmunk voices, Barbie personas and butt pads, I had my own response. “because of Nicki Minaj…I might have a chance.” My name is Charity Clay and I’m a woman and an emcee. I have difficulties with the term femcee because it implies that the term emcee is normalized to be a guy and I don’t think mic skills have a gender. I consider myself to be a lyricist and only measure myself by who I consider to be the best, but I digress. I was talking about how the popularity of Nicki Minaj is a good thing for us women in hip-hop who consider ourselves to be emcees. Now one would assume that my claim to be a lyricist would indicate some desire to reject the Nicki Minajes of the world because of the belief that they are destroying the purity of hip-hop but I have a different perspective on the situation.
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