For Colored Girls: 10 Rap Songs Celebrating Black Women

Every day it seems like our black women just don't get enough love. I thought I'd put together a list of some of the best songs I could think of that celebrate black women.

1. Wale - Shades ft. Chrisette Michele 

In this song Wale explains how he was tormented for his dark skin. He goes on to state he was brought up to associate light skin with class so he hated his own dark skin. This caused him to hate, distrust and disrespect light skinned black women. In the end he realizes that shades of skin mean nothing and realizes the only reason he would do things he did is because he lacked confidence. His apology to women he mistreated because of their shade.

2. Black Star - Brown Skinned Lady 

I go into more detail on the song here but the song praises black women. It celebrates black women for being so beautiful inside and out. They also chastise people for the European beauty standards they uphold, all while desiring black women's natural traits. The curves, the lips, the hair, the shades. There's products, treatments and surgeries to get all of these, while black women have them naturally.

3. Nas - American Way ft. Kelis

The song in general points out the hypocrisy of the American Way. However, in the second verse Nas goes on to specifically address the hypocrisy black women face as well as lay to rest stereotypes about black women being "gold diggers," "groupies," "filled with attitude" and other stupid ones. He then goes on to ask why white women are praised for these qualities.

4. Yo Yo - The I.B.W.C. National Anthem

The I.B.W.C. acronym stands for Intelligent Black Woman's Coalition. The song has Yo Yo not only demanding that people respect black women but that black women also come together and take over the world. Want to hear something crazy? 49% of black businesses are owned by black women. The number of black women business owners has gone up 322% in the last 20 years. Business owned by black women are worth a combined 52.6 Billion. Yeah, the I.B.W.C. is putting in work. Support black business.

5. KRS One - Womanology

The stereotype of black women having bad attitudes is played out and KRS One addresses that. It's simple, you want respect, you give respect. Why should you expect black women to respect women when you don't respect them. You also aren't owed anything from black women. Even with all that, black women still give their all to us as black men, even when we don't support them. Let's try to do better.

6. Ghostface Killah - All That I Got is You ft. Tekitha

This is Ghost paying tribute to black women who constantly put everyone else ahead of themselves. In this case he's thanking his mother, aunts and grandmother for raising them. His mother specifically who kept raising them despite her battle with muscular dystrophy.

7. Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop (That Thing)

Lauryn takes the time to talk to the younger black women. Promising them that they're worth more than anyone will ever tell them. She specifically tells them to avoid men who want nothing but sex. She's out to let young black women know that they aren't prizes to be won and should be proud of who they are no matter what others tell them.

8. Lil Kim - Ladies Night (Not Tonight Remix) ft. Angie Martinez, Left Eye, Da Brat, and Missy Elliot 

Queen Latifah is known for promoting abstinence in her music and demanding respect, not just for herself but all black women. She challenged other women rappers to sell lyrics and not sex, some like Fox Brown decided to go for Queen Latifah's crown. Lil Kim another rapper said to be selling sex not lyrics rose to the occasion with her song Not Tonight. She demanded respect and said sex was okay but only after you were respected. She praised black women for their strength and beauty, but she wasn't done. She went and got four more women to join her for the remix. The video has even more women with Queen Latifah, the rest of TLC with T-Boz and Chilli, Mary J. Blige, the groups Total, SWV, Xscape, Blaque, and Changing Faces. It was truly ladies night. They flaunted their sex appeal but also demanded the utmost respect.

9. Wu-Tang Clan - Camay

The Wu raps about black women, no sex, just black love. Seriously, each member raps about a different black woman who range from celibate to not having sex on the first date to not going home with one of them. Despite that they state how much black women deserved to be loved. How they're more than sex objects. Throughout the song they fall in love with these women for different reasons. One has more money than the entire Wu and breaks them down for thinking money would attract her. Another is a single mother handling her business and the third is successful lawyer. The Wu has nothing but love for the ladies

10. Dead Prez - The Beauty Within

Remember when B.O.B. was cool and made tracks like "Nothin On You," with Bruno Mars? I digress, Dead Prez took that, chewed it up and spit out a song called Beauty Within and dedicated it to all the black women around the world. Black women don't get any praise on TV, radio, movies or anything else, but they're still beautiful. The song praises natural hair at one point but goes on to state that's a woman's choice and even without it her natural beauty comes from the melanin, the cheek bones, the lips and everything else that makes black women so amazing. It's not just outer beauty that gets praised either. Inner beauty is praised as well. Black Women continue on being strong when it seems like everywhere they turn there's someone to shoot them down. Even black men. It's important that they get that love. Black women are beautiful inside and out, from all around the world.

Those are just ten songs I came up with but I'm sure you've got more so I would love to hear them down in the comments or even tweet them to me.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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