Hotep and Hip-Hop: Can Black Muslim Women Be Down with Hip-Hop?1

"Black Muslim women and hip-hop? ... real Muslims don't listen to hip-hop." For many it is almost unfathomable that black Muslim women would have any involvement with hip-hop music. While several scholars have explored the connections between hip-hop and Islam, hip-hop scholarship usually neglects in-depth conversations about black Muslim women. Using the examples of Erykah Badu, Eve, and myself, this paper explores the ways in which black Muslim women of the hip-hop generation use our music to negotiate faith and culture. Creating improvisation zones that highlight the flexibility of religion as it moves through cultures and spaces of resistance, black Muslim women successfully reconcile hotep and hip-hop.