Seriously, Why Aren’t There More Female Hip-Hop Producers? Posted by Nathan S. on 09/17/12 | Filed under Top Stories, Opinion

I think the fact that I spend the majority of my life thinking about hip-hop, and it wasn't until last week that the complete absence of female producers even occurred to me, really says it all.

Seriously though. Take a minute and name some female producers. If you can name more than Missy Elliott, congratulations, you've done better than me. I literally can't think of a single other producer than Missy, which is insane. Right? Even allmighty Google doesn't seem to have many answers. Really? This is a topic that requires in-depth research?

If anything, you'd think there would be more female producers than female emcees. Hip-hop is still very much a male dominated profession, so it seems like it'd be harder for women to grab the spotlight rapping than behind the scenes producing. Why isn't there the production version of Rapsody/Nitty Scott/etc. out there on the rise right now?

Could it be that male producers are even more willing to shut out women than male rappers? Is there some kind of vicious cycle where women don't see female producers, so they don't think of becoming a female producer? Do men just not want to rap on beats from a female producer? Even if so, there are enough female emcees out there you'd think women would be producing for other women.

This shit just doesn't make any sense to me, so I'm opening up the topic to RefinedHype Nation. Anyone have any theories? Are there female producers I'm overlooking? Any artists/producer/etc. out there have any insight?

On a closing note, Missy really was (and is) an underrated producer, I think mostly because many wrongly think Timbaland was actually often producing for her, even when she was the only producer listed in the credits. Missy's had some serious hits behind the boards.

UPDATE: Also thought of Pam The Funkstress, from The Coup. So there's two.