Can’t End Won’t Stop meets Girls to leading with this essential and very long overdue history of hip-hop’s feminine pioneers and its own enduring stars.

Every history of hip-hop previously posted, from Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop to Shea Serrano’s The Rap Yearbook, focuses primarily on men, glaringly omitting a thorough and respectful study of the presence and contribution of the genre’s feminine artists.

For far too long, women in hip-hop have already been relegated towards the shadows, about God Save the Queens: THE FUNDAMENTAL History of Women in Hip-Hop considered the designated “Initial Lady” thrown a agreement, a pawn in some beef, or even worse. But as Kathy Iandoli makes obvious, the truth is very different. Today, hip-hop is certainly dominated by effective women such as Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, however there are scores of female performers whose influence continues to resonate.

God Save the Queens gives tribute to the ladies of hip-hop-from the first work of Roxanne Shante, to hitmakers like Queen Latifah and Missy Elliot, towards the superstars of today. Discovering issues of gender, money, sexuality, assault, body image, feuds, objectification and even more, God Save the Queens is an essential and monumental function of music journalism that at last gives these important female artists the respect they possess long deserved.