By many metrics, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop – its origin point being a summer house party in the Bronx, during which DJ Kool Herc displayed a nascent style of turntabling. Like so many aspects of music history, this is a contested date. But the hip-hop firmament has settled on this year as the one to mark – hence the bevy of celebratory performances, films and books that have been released recently.
One such documentary is Ladies First: A Story of Women In Hip-Hop, a Netflix documentary series that aims to reaffirm the importance of female MCs, DJs and producers to the genre, as well as the women who worked behind the scenes, such as songwriters, journalists and A&R reps. Historically, hip-hop – like the music industry at large – has had a woeful track record when it comes to celebrating and canonising the work of women, and Ladies First – named for the 1989 track by Queen Latifah and Monie Love, both of whom appear as talking heads in the series – is a joyous, painstaking attempt to establish a new historical record.
