The New York Times-20080127-Hip-Hop-s Newest Faces- Indie- Fierce and Female

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Hip-Hop's Newest Faces: Indie, Fierce and Female

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JWL B. of the Florida hip-hop duo Yo Majesty was not satisfied with her tight-collared, mostly male audience at a New York club last fall. So she nonchalantly peeled off her oversized white T-shirt and black sports bra and performed the next several songs topless, bounding about the stage with the ease of a shirtless male rapper. The audience lit up and finally proceeded to, as the Yo Majesty song Club Action commands, get their behinds on the floor.

And that is how a lesbian rap group from Florida got an uptight Manhattan crowd to relax a little.

I got stretch marks, and I'm fat, and I'm wildin,' Jwl B., whose real name is Jewel Baynham, said in a phone interview. But your boy 50 Cent does his show with his shirt off. Why can't I? God made me who I am, and I'm comfortable in it. I want people to know you don't have to look glamorous to be an inspiration.

It's a lackluster time for mainstream female rappers, with M.C.'s like Foxy Brown and Remy Ma making more headlines for jail stints than for their music. Lil' Kim hasn't gone platinum since 2003, Eve's comeback album has been delayed several times, and Missy Elliott's first record in three years isn't due until late spring. Fergie, with her singsong chants about her feminine wiles, is the closest thing to a female rap superstar these days. But in the wake of the critical favorite M.I.A., a new crop of young, multicultural, female hip-hop acts is causing a stir on the Internet and in indie-label conference rooms.

There's Kid Sister, a cheeky, charismatic rapper from Chicago who recently released a video featuring Kanye West; Amanda Blank, a nasty-mouthed M.C. from Philadelphia who is associated with the hipster male hip-hopper Spank Rock; and Santogold, a new-wavey singer and dub-style rapper from Brooklyn who toured with Bjork last fall. Though their styles vary from agile wordplay to club-ready choruses, what unites them is their fresh, left-of-center enthusiasm; their bold attitudes; and an expansive approach to female sexuality.

There is a reason why these artists are having so much early traction online, said Josh Deutsch, chief executive of Downtown Records, which will release albums by Amanda Blank and Santogold this spring. And it's because they have such strong voices and strong points of view. There's nothing remotely manufactured about them.

Yo Majesty's roots go back six years, when Ms. Baynham met LaShunda Flowers, who is known as Shunda K., a track star turned rapper, at a gay club in Tampa, Fla. (A third member, Shon Burt, quit recently.) The group's early songs were real gay music, Ms. Flowers said.

Yo Majesty broke up for a few years, during which Ms. Baynham renounced her homosexuality, found God, married a male Christian missionary, got divorced then reclaimed her lesbian identity. Upon reuniting, the rappers began building a following through MySpace. That led to a recording contract with Domino Records, which will release their debut album this year.

Yo Majesty's party-rap proudly celebrates everything below the waist, but the duo also grapples with growing up Christian and gay. At the end of every show, Ms. Flowers said, whatever we do, we ask people, 'Do you know who the Lord is?'

The only religion in Amanda Blank's music is the kind she is losing. Ms. Blank, whose real name is Amanda Mallory, mimics the pornographic lyrics of Southern rappers like Trina and Khia, but she ramps up the gross-out factor to the point of nigh-absurdity. Her persona is a mix of seediness and street-toughness, which is on display in Loose, a recent video by Spank Rock. As several naked, tattooed women writhe all over him, Ms. Blank sits on a toilet, threatening to fight rappers who try to steal her style and making highly unprintable claims about her sexual prowess.

Unlike Yo Majesty and Amanda Blank, Kid Sister spurns sexual frankness in favor of innuendo. Born Melisa Young on the South Side of Chicago, she dismisses unsuitable suitors while strutting her postmodern stuff. We could be hugged up like hippies on a tree trunk, she teases in her verse in Chromeo's Tenderoni, while Telephone reprimands a guy for calling too much. In the video for her single Pro Nails, backup dancers sit in pedicure chairs, lip-synching the chorus: Got her toes done up with her fingernails matchin'.

The video underscores Ms. Young's populist, all-ages aspirations. It's music made by a girl who shops at Target, made for girls who shop at Target, Ms. Young said. Or girls who work at LensCrafters or Ace Hardware or are sorority sisters or debutantes.

Angel Laws, editor of the celebrity news Web site Concreteloop.com and an early champion of Kid Sister, said: I think she stands out. She's a party rapper, bringing back the '80s style with the club-hop. (Kid Sister's debut album, KoKo B. Ware, is due from Fool's Gold Records this summer.)

But the artist with the loudest buzz is Santogold, who has already been called the next big thing in many articles. Born Santi White, she parlayed a college internship at Ruffhouse Records into a job as an A&R scout for Sony. After she was executive producer and wrote most of the songs on an album for the R&B singer Res, she left and eventually formed her own punk band, Stiffed.

In 2006 Ms. White, who now lives in Brooklyn, began writing her own songs; Creator and LES Artists confess to feelings of alienation, but she also revels in her individuality. Singing in a haunting, sensual wail, or toasting in the style of dub M.C.'s, she adds a layer of softness to an unusual mix of synthesizers, dancehall rhythms and percolating new wave.

She appeals very broadly, said Martin Heath, the founder of Lizard King Records, which signed Stiffed and is jointly releasing Santogold's debut album with Downtown. She's not cliche one way or the other. She's not playing on the foxy thing.

Ms. White said she admires other female artists who try to defy stereotypes. You get these images of women in sexy clothes, walking around in, like, panties, she said. Even Beyonce -- that's what it is to be a woman and make music. But now there are all these other women doing cool, interesting things, wearing styles they came up with, and it's not about being naked.

Since the time seems ripe for underground, unquantifiable female M.C.'s, the Lady Tigra is hoping that pioneers will have a place too. She was half of the '80s duo L'Trimm, which scored a poppy Miami bass hit with Cars that Go Boom in 1988.

After spending the last two decades getting a creative writing degree, managing Manhattan clubs and writing and singing the theme song for the frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry (Sorry Ice Cream), she's preparing for a comeback. Her first solo album, Please Mr. Boom Box, released by High Score Records, is available through major digital retailers.

Tigra's aesthetic hasn't changed much since the '80s. She raps in the same honeyed, high-pitched tone, and there are beefy low-end clicks, handclaps and electro synthesizers, all hallmarks of classic Miami bass music. But contrary to much music of that genre, there is little overt sex; she prefers coy comebacks.

The Lady Tigra, whose real name is Rachel de Rougemont, said she hopes that girls will realize that artists like Fergie and Gwen Stefani were inspired by semi-forgotten female forebears like L'Trimm and J. J. Fad and M.C. Lyte and get into that.

Before, you'd really have to come with it to be considered an M.C., she added. And now women get -- if not equal -- way more respect and recognition for what they do.

[Illustration]PHOTOS: Jwl B., left, and Shunda K of Yo Majesty. The duo built a following through MySpace, leading to a recording contract. Their debut album will be released this year. Santi White, who performs as Santogold, is a singer and rapper from Brooklyn. She toured with Bjork last fall and will release her debut album this spring. (PHOTOGRAPH BY CRAIG WETHERBY)