the 1970s on. Gloria Gaynor brought a powerful message to a disco genre usually devoid of meaning when she asserted the strength of a woman’s identity independent of “her man” in “I Will Survive.” Shunning the traditional notion of so many love songs that “I am nothing without you,” the song asserted that not only would she survive the end of a romance, but that she would grow stronger and thrive after. Betty Davis took empowerment in sexual relationships to an unprecedented level of lyrical aggressiveness beginning in 1973 with her steamy funk. She directly asserted a woman’s right to be the sexual aggressor and to be horny in songs like “If I’m In Luck I Might Get Picked Up,” with such lyrical assertions as “I said if I'm in luck I might just get picked up, I said I'm fishin' trick and you can call it what you want,” and “So all you lady haters don't be cruel to me/Don't you crush my velvet don't you ruffle my feathers neither/I said I'm crazy I said I'm wild I said I'm nasty.” She was a far cry from the gospel music of the black women of the early civil rights movement, but her attitude and assertiveness represented just as important a step forward in individual empowerment. While the music of the African American “divas” of the 80s and 90s mostly focused on traditional lyrical themes and vocal acrobatics, Whitney Houston nonetheless succeeded in making several statements about the importance of self-esteem in spite of the AM Radio-safe themes of the genre. Her rendition of “The Greatest Love Of All” took a song originally written as the theme for the Muhammad Ali biopic “The Greatest” and made it her own personal statement of the need to love oneself. She also challenged women to stand up for their dignity in relationships with “I’m Not Susan,” in which she sang “Don't wanna hear about Susan/She's got nothin' on me/So show some respect for the love you receive/My name is not Susan.” As hip-hop music grew to be dominated by “mac daddy” attitudes that subjugated women, a form of hip-hop feminism began to develop among female artists in the early 1990s, and continues to remain at the forefront of black female liberation and assertiveness today. In 1993, Salt-n-Pepa made it clear that they would have nothing to do with the pimp attitudes that disrespected and belittled women, and defined their own concept of what a real man should
be in “What A Man.” The duo succeeded in turning the tables on sexist poseurs by making clear what a strong woman says a man should be: “Spends quality time with his kids when he can/Secure in his manhood cuz he's a real man/A lover and a fighter and he'll knock a sucker out/Don't take him for a sucker cuz that's not what he's about/Every time I need him, he always got my back/Never disrespectful cuz his mama taught him that.” While there will always be progress to be made in the ongoing struggle for liberation and selfidentity of any people, the current state of the music of black women is in amazing contrast to the disempowerment and dependency of the past. Whether it is Nicki Minaj professing In Kanye West’s “Monster”: “You could be the king, but watch the queen conquer,” or India.Arie rejecting the fashions and images forced on women in “I Am Not My Hair,” the bold assertiveness of African American women in their music represents a realization of a great many of the goals of the civil rights and women’s liberation movements, and has even progressed into areas of personal liberation that exceed anything that early activists could have envisioned. •
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