You think being a female rapper in America is hard? Imagine coming up on the scene in Ghana as a female rapper. The music business shows no mercy. Hailing from the country of Ghana, Eno Barony is a female rapper who was put on the scene with her first single “Tonga” in 2014. Since then she has had a major impact on the hip hop culture in Ghana.
Her new song “Fear No Man” expresses her stance in the rap game. She speaks with pride when she talks about how good of a rapper that she is. She does this mostly with comparison and metaphors. You can see this here:
I wanna be someone you can never be, I’m the King of Queens
I’m just very heated and I’m now skwatting on different toilet,
But same Sh*t… I run Sh*t,
Most of her lyrics are either in Twi, a dialect of the Akan language spoken in Ghana or in Pidgin. For example:
Nti wo best rapper bɛ dani me boyfriend, I no go use my jaw, Cuz my lyrics is a better blow… Yes!
Looking at the visual for this song, it represents hip hop in many ways and has patterns of many women in the rap game that use the pride tactic in their lyrics. The video has a black and white filter used and highlights lines and phrases that emphasizes her purpose of the song. The type of clothing she wears is not “typical” of what a woman would wear but has a masculine influence. The entire vibe of the video is, in a way, masculine. One example of this is when she sits in the chair not conserving space, but using all space, which is something a man is told to do.
Throughout most of her comparisons, she touches on the relationship between the male and female MCs and how just because she is a woman in the music business, in hip hop, doesn’t mean that she isn’t just as good as them. Within hip hop, and music in general, there are usually only two ways that women can present themselves. Either they are seen as a sexual being/only focused and geared towards the men’s desires, or they “hard”, or rather, can’t express their feminine side. However, I have seen Eno be in both realms which creates a new realm for those entering the hip-hop scene. She is one the of the female African, Ghanaian rappers at that, that have been seen being in both worlds which creates versatility and does not bind the gender. Eno Barony is one that we should all be on the look out to have a hand in changing the game, the rap game.
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