Queen Latifah, Foxy Brown and Nicki Minaj Grace the Pages of a New Book About the Women Who Changed Hip-Hop Forever

Longtime hip-hop fan Nadirah Simmons grew up listening to some of the most influential women to ever touch the microphone, and now her new book reminds readers just how important those women were to the genre.

From flipping through CDs like Lil Kim’s Hard Core and Evin Scorpion in her childhood home, to studying Nicki Minaj’s early pre-childhoodPink Friday songs while rapping to herself in the mirror, Simmons grew up listening to the ladies who changed the game. After founding the hip-hop social club and platform The Gumbo in 2018, she turned her passion into a career. Her new book, First things first: The hip-hop ladies who changed the game, takes readers on that journey.

“When you think about Queen Latifah, she’s done it all, and she still has hip hop at her core and her roots. And when you think about Lauryn Hill going to an awards show and winning as many Grammys as she did, what? That’s crazy,” Simmons, a former member The Late Show with Stephen Colbertsocial team, tells PEOPLE about his new book. “Being able to put it all in place and highlight the writers and designers and stylists and rappers and people that were sampled, all that stuff, that made me feel good.”

The book reshapes the 50-year history of hip-hop by collecting the stories of women carving their way into popular culture. But while it gives a lot of space to the rappers who changed the game themselves, the book also gives credit to the stylists, designers and even writers who helped tell the story of women in hip-hop.

Nadirah Simmons.

Raymond Colon

Female pioneers of hip-hop and their many milestones — from MC Sha-Rock to Nicki Minaj

“Hip-hop at its core, even with all the things that can sometimes come with it, is fun and it’s fun and it means a lot to people,” Simmons says. “And I really wanted people to feel that. You won’t necessarily feel that if I randomly tell you the story of this rapper’s life or their upbringing; you’ll feel like you’re reading a Wikipedia page.”

That’s why Simmons includes personal anecdotes alongside the history—to make it come alive on the page, as well as provide a point of connection for the reader.

“I wanted to be able to relate why I shaved off all my hair [to] why it was important to see Eve in that way with her hair shaved,” explains Simmons. “And what that relationship meant and also how she represented style for so many people. I feel like those personal anecdotes, they add a bit of humor, comic relief and make you think, ‘What’s my fashion moment?’ I didn’t realize that person was the reason we have this.'”

From matching lyrics to Kanye West’s “Monster” (in which Minaj swept the competition), to exchanging text messages about Lil Kim, First the most important balances facts and entertainment with personal detachment. Ahead of Tuesday’s release via Hachette, here are a few highlights — which the author says are often forgotten when talking about women in hip-hop — covered in First the most important.

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‘Yay! MTV Raps’ and Sophie Bramly

Simmons’ book is organized like an album with interludes, another element that will be familiar to hip-hop fans. He goes into detail in “track 13” about the story of Sophie Bramly, one of the women who created MTV Europe and whom Simmons writes “first brought ‘Yo’ to MTV” as a producer and presenter.

In a story previously covered in Dan Charnas’s book, The Big Payback: The History of Business in Hip-HopBramly is credited with the coinage Yo! MTV Raps after the classic record Public EnemyYo! Boom Rush the Show. The series premiered on MTV Europe in October 1987, before arriving in the US a year later. He is responsible for “so many great moments in hip-hop that are still talked about today,” writes Simmons in First the most important.

Yo! it arrived just a few years after MTV premiered Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” in 1983, a major milestone for black artists who were rarely featured on the network at the time.

“I think a lot of times, and that was my part of the reason [writing about] ‘first’ doesn’t mean saying, ‘Oh, you’re the first, you’re the best. And if you’re after the first, then you don’t matter.’ But just to give people context for the origins and how you can trace a lot of things back to women within hip hop,” Simmons says.

The Origins of Nicki Minaj’s Performing Arts

In the book, Simmons refers to Minaj, 41 — who has racked up many “firsts” as a rapper — as “the first female rapper to completely destroy two goat men on a track.”

And while her verse on 2010’s “Monster” certainly speaks for itself when pitted against West and Jay-Z, Minaj’s history can be traced back to her time at Fiorello H High School for Music and Arts and Performing Arts. LaGuardia in New York. York City — a fact Simmons admits she often glances over.

“Something I forget about her is that she went to a performing arts high school,” Simmons tells PEOPLE. “But you can see it in her performance. You can hear it in her tone; she has these alter egos… This is the foundation of who she’s become.”

2006 Foxy Brown Angie Martinez interview

Celebrated radio personality Angie Martinez she gets her time to shine in the book, where Simmons lovingly calls her “the first Latina hip-hop voice in the radio hall of fame.”

And amid the many highlights of Martinez’s decades in the industry, including conversations with Tupac Shakur, Mary J. Blige, Notorious BIG and even Barack Obama, one conversation with Foxy Brown in particular stands out.

The conversation took place on Hot 97 in 2006, when Brown spoke to Martinez about the fact that she had difficulty hearing on air with the host just a year before. At the time, Brown reported that Martinez “held me down with such dignity, class and respect.” Her hearing problem was later diagnosed as “severe and sudden sensorineural hearing loss in both ears,” Simmons writes.

Simmons also writes about the care Martinez took to “respect and protect” the musician on the show as she spoke about her disability. “I remember listening to that interview and being so grateful that Angie was so careful with her when she was there at first and realized she couldn’t even hear on the radio,” Simmons says. “I want to celebrate those things. I want people to hear those stories.”

‘First Things First’ Nadirah Simmons.

Hachette Book Group

Celebrating fashion icon April Walker

Simmons also chronicles the life and career of Walker Wear founder April Walker — who she calls “the first woman to have a dominant hip-hop brand” and who helped shape Run-DMC, Tupac, Method Man, Notorious BIG and many others. It also includes a first-hand conversation with Walker, describing his ups and downs in the industry.

“She was really the first woman in that hip hop fashion space,” says Simmons. “Not only was she a pioneer, [but] people we see as pioneers say, “Hey, I need help with what I’m trying to do here.”

Beyond the milestones of rap and into home

Queen Latifah attends Variety’s 2022 Power Of Women Event on May 5, 2022 in New York City.

Dia Dipasupil/Getty

Simmons’ book reminds readers that hip-hop is about much more than female MCs—women in television, fashion, media, and even design.

One subject that made an impact on Simmons while researching the book was the story of Courtney Sloane, an interior designer who has worked with the likes of Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige.

As she recounts in First the most important, Sloane designed Latifah’s home for her and her mother when the rapper first found success, which ultimately “opened the door for her design work in hip-hop” — including stints in the offices of BET and Vibe. “I don’t think about who’s going to design Queen Latifah’s first home when she and her mom are done with it,” Simmons says, revealing Sloane’s work.

That discovery, not only of pioneering musical artists, but of the people around them, is the driving spirit of Simmons’ book.

“I often think about hip-hop in a lot of other ways,” says Simmons. “I love music, but it’s so much more than just rapping.”

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Source: HIS Education