A nod to the First Ladies Crew

Pitchfork, a music criticism website based out of Chicago, has turned some of its attention to the hip-hop scene here in the great white north.

Music writer Andrea Warner’s profile of the First Ladies Crew, a hip-hop collective made up of Indigenous women in East Vancouver, on the website is a serious nod from the indie music world.

Pitchfork is best known for its music reviews, interviews and profiles and is often looked to by mainstream media for a sense of what’s going on in the contemporary indie and alternative music scene, and Warner’s piece will likely reach many who’ve never heard of JB the First Lady or Miss Christie Lee.

First Ladies Crew/Myspace

The beats these women drop aren’t just catchy and they’re not just out to party. The music comes from a place of apprecitation of culture, or from the need to re-connect to heritage and raise awareness about issues facing Indigenous women.

Via www.jbthefirstlady.com

"Hip-hop showed me that I needed to be connected to culture: songs, dance, ceremonies," Jerilynn Webster, aka JB the First Lady and a founder of the collective, said.

"Our ancestors, the matriarchs, were the speakers, the keepers of ceremony, and our oral history,” she continued. “As a young person, an activist talking about women’s rights or about murdered and missing Indigenous women, hip-hop has been the best venue to connect with not only my peers and young people, but also the greater public that may have barriers to listening to the stories of First Nations’ Indigenous people."

Rapsure Risin’. First Ladies Crew/Myspace

The story talks about how the First Ladies Crew developed and what it’s all about. And while these women are making strides in their scene in East Van, there’s still so much work to do.

“But the work to be done looms,” Warner wrote. “The hip-hop scene is still dominated by men and Indigenous artists continue to be presented as 'other' and largely precluded from mainstream Canadian music.”

Read more on the First Ladies Crew, here .