from Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap “Crisis”
Theorizing African American Music Series | Oxford University Press | August 2025
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“You gon’ do what to who? Stop it. You havin’ shit yo’ way? Pop it. They cannot stand me I’m too cocky. Got a new drip. They finna jock it.”
—Omeretta the Great, “Stop It” (2022)
To conclude Make Rappers Rap Again: Interrogating the Mumble Rap “Crisis,“ I express appreciation for the ways contemporary Hip Hop is centering so many women artists. At the same time, I acknowledge the ways dishonest nostalgia and a propensity for exceptionalizing is once again impacting a critical Hip Hop moment, resulting in women artists being deemed too ghetto, unintelligent, inarticulate, unworthy of acclaim, standoffish, anti-male, untalented, obsessed with money, sexually licentious, and so on. While I note sexism, misogyny, and other forms of subjugation will likely be prevalent in Hip Hop as long as they’re prevalent in the world, I call on readers to continue cocreating and remaking Hip Hop even when it might be different from the Hip Hop they once knew. I also call on readers to be mindful of their propensity for catastrophizing and to realize contemporary Hip Hop is often, if not mostly, congruent with the various iterations they appreciate and love most.
The Songs
The Videos
Dr. Heidi R. Lewis 