Females and hip-hop are strange bed fellows. There is a second set of rules that applies to women who choose rap as their profession. Whether that’s fair or not is another topic. But in the entire history of hip-hop there are only a handful of women who made a lasting impact on the genre.

We all know the list: MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Foxy Brown, Lil Kim, Eve, Remy Ma, and Trina.

Now we can add Nicki Minaj to that list.

The self proclaimed Harajuku Barbie has made herself stand above all her competition (even though there seems to be no one to challenge her claim to the throne at the moment). But her ascension to the top of the rapstress mountain has been less than smooth. Detractors of Minaj often point out her ego and Barbie like mannerisms in videos like it’s a problem. When it comes to males in rap we love personality (see: Busta Rhymes) but when a woman shows some flare she is cast as a bad example for young girls and automatically disqualified from rap.

The knock on Nicki in the beginning was that she was overtly sexual in nature. I find that to be hypocritical when it’s common knowledge that fans in hip-hop, men in particular, like a certain femininity in their female rappers. Nobody wants to watch an ugly woman rap, no matter how talented she is. Women haven’t been afforded the luxury of purely relying on their lyrical skills. Jean Grae for example is in a class all alone when it comes to lyrics, but you’d be hard pressed to find a casual hip-hop fan that can say they know of her let alone supported her releases.

Hip-hop has long been accused of being misogynistic and most times the claim is valid. In the case of Nicki Minaj she has become a victim of her own success. We build someone up and then once they achieve a certain level of fame or stardom we begin the process of tearing them down. Take for example the 2009 BET Hip-Hop Awards. During the cypher segment Nicki spit some memorable bars, but in the aftermath she was the one MC singled out for “writing” her rhymes and not truly freestyling. How many of the MCs that participated do you truly think spit that off the top of the dome? It’s just another subtle example of the double standard that we have become accustom to in hip-hop.

Beneath all of the crazy antics and the Barbie talk, Minaj is a woman who is an immensely talented writer. If a man was saying half the things she came up with in her lyrics then he would be applauded for his clever lines and wit. She is like a female version of Lil Wayne. Now that can either be a good or bad thing depending on your taste. She has all of the qualities that can make her a viable artist in these trying financial times. Record labels aren’t going to spend money promoting someone they can’t recoup their investment on.

I’m not saying that she is the greatest female artist of all time, but I am saying that she has been harshly judged and in my opinion it’s because we hold women to a higher standard then we do their male counterparts. If we judged all artists the way we judge women then Soulja Boy, Waka Flocka Flame and Gucci Mane wouldn’t be lauded the way that they are.

We can’t have it both ways!

Complaining about Nicki but not supporting other worthy female MCs does nothing to help the genre as a whole. By continually finding faults in female MCs we are only weakening the music. Hip-hop is about giving a voice to the voiceless and no one is more underrepresented than women.

When you judge Nicki Minaj on the same scale that we generally judge any artist she passes with flying colors. Loyal fan base? Check. Unique personality? Check. Appeal? Double check. Talent? Check.