Allegedly former Hot 97 Program Director Ebro Darden is never one to turn coy when asked for his opinion. While promoting his radio station’s VH1 reality show, This Is Hot 97, we asked the Morning Show host a variety of questions including what’s stopping women rappers from flourishing in the rap game.
“I would say the thing(s) holding female artists back are not supporting one another,” Darden told Hip-Hop Wired. “There’s a lot of cattiness and going at each other and not supporting one another; feeling like my brand can’t be next to your your brand.”
But Darden didn’t put the blame solely MCs of the fairer sex.
“The thing really holding the female artists back is sometimes the audience,” he added. “[Because] the audience can be very judgemental on appearance–having a new outfit everyday, and a new hairstyle everyday, and a new bag everyday, and a new pair of shoes everyday. Now because your in a visual world with all the blogs and everything, the blogs beat the sh*t out of up and coming artists because maybe their hair ain’t right. A lot of that has to fall on y’all. Because y’all don’t let the music be why you fall in love sometimes. Too often it becomes the appearance. Sometimes we fall in love with appearance, and not the music. Which is also why the music sometimes tends to suffer.”
Darden also offered solid insight on whether or not Remy Ma will get her momentum back in the rap world when she’s freed, who is going to keep Papoose from crashing the Summer Jam stage and if Hot 97 and their Power 105 competitors respect each other.
This Is Hot 97 airs Monday night’s at 10:30 pm on VH1. Check out his sit down with Hip-Hip Wired below. And yes, Ebro Darden is Black enough for Hip-Hop Wired. We appreciate Hip-Hop in all flavors around these parts.
—
Ph0to: Hip-Hop Wired
