Its tough being apart of a Male Dominated movement were you have to compete vocally towards another female Emcee by trashing and dragging her through the mud. Battling is the part of Hip Hop Culture however female Emcees are encourage to attack then to display their lyrical skills.
Females in Hip Hop represent more then music they represent a movement of Emcees, Dancers, Graffiti Writers, Dj’s, Educators, Activist, Philosopher, Professors, Psychologist, Therapist, and more.
Today we Celebrate our Hip Hop SisHer, Our Queen: Martha Diaz
Martha Diaz is the founder of the Hip-Hop Education Center. She’s an award winning community organizer, social entrepreneur, media producer, archivist, curator, and professor at New York University. For two decades, Diaz has traversed between the hip-hop entertainment industry, non-profit sector and academia. She has worked on Hollywood productions and produced TV shows, documentaries, music videos, and PSA’s. Diaz served as the executive director of the Hip-Hop Association, where she produced and curated the Hip-Hop Odyssey International Film Festival and Hip-Hop Education Summit.
In 2010, Diaz founded the Hip-Hop Education Center, housed at NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, to cultivate and professionalize the field of hip-hop-based education. She is co-editor of the Hip-Hop Education Guidebook, Vol. I (Hip-Hop Association, 2007) and Rebel Music: Resistance Through Hip Hop and Punk (Information Age Publishing, 2015). Among her fellowships and residencies, Diaz served as resident of NJ Performing Arts Center’s Alternate Routes Program, Fellow at NYU Reynolds Program for Social Entrepreneurship, Senior Fellow at the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation – National Museum of American History, and Hip-Hop Scholar at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture – NY Public Library. In 2014, Diaz was appointed as Columbia University Community Scholar, where she collaborates with the Institute for Urban and Minority Education and the Center for Justice. Her most recent media project is the award winning NAS: Time Is Illmatic documentary. Diaz is a Cabinet Member of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, a citizen-led, policy-oriented leadership group.
