D. F. Wallace, in a 1990 essay, defined rap as "black music for black people": in fact, this musical genre was born in the 1970s out of a need by young African-American people living in the suburbs to emancipate themselves from the degradation they experienced every day, denouncing incidents of violence and racism. Early rap was practiced almost exclusively by men: it was essential to demonstrate street credibility and masculinity, even through ego-trip and scariness of others. The rappers' crude rhymes often resulted in misogynistic and homophobic slurs. In this research, I studied expressions of gender through the analysis of a series of album covers and music video clips. Gender, in hip-hop culture, has always been a yardstick. If in the rap scene of the 1980s and 1990s women were "basically invisible", now among the names of the most famous rappers there's Nicki Minaj. Lil Nas X is enacting a true queer revolution in hip-hop. Men still constitute the majority of rappers, but now artists are more aware of the influence of their image, attitudes, and, most importantly, their words.
