Not For Men Only

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A few rappers are giving voice to a vengeful brand of radical black feminism. In a snarling, hard-core style, BWP (Bytches with Problems) bluster about date rape, male egos and police brutality -- all with a fluent vulgarity. Their leather jackets and cold stares add to their image. In Comin' Back Strapped, the opener on their debut album, BWP avenge a sexual slur against them by returning with a loaded gun and dispatching the bigmouth. In We Want Money, a bottom-line guide to personal relationships, they exhort their girlfriends to take from their boyfriends all they can get: "Marry you? Don't make me laugh/ Don't you know all I want is half?" Says Lyndah McAskill, who, along with Michelle Morgan, makes up BWP: "We're not men- haters. We're just saying a lot of kids lack self-respect because guys have put them down."

But a whole new crew is coming up fast, including Yo-Yo (Yolanda Whitaker), 19, a sharp Los Angeleno whose You Can't Play with My Yo-Yo may be the most clever and forceful attack on misogyny in rap so far. What these young artists have achieved, beyond commercial recognition, is the broadening of rap's audience and a role in rap's development as an art form. Besides just offering a different attitude, women have shown that rap can be far more significant and flexible than its critics have admitted. And that makes it all the more difficult to categorize, ghettoize or otherwise dismiss.