Underground femcee Tiye Phoenix is on the defensive regarding a televised comment she made about Nicki Minaj on BET. Phoenix has denied intentionally going after Nicki Minaj‘s image and talent on BET’s “My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip-Hop.”
Phoenix has been getting a lot of bashing for the comments and is forced to come out in defense of herself.
“Television is really good at giving you sound bites so you don’t really get a chance sometimes to zero in and lock in on a specific word that a person says and upon just initial listen and not really intently focusing on what I said, you could walk away saying that I criticized the artist and the person and I didn’t…My commentary was specifically addressing progressiveness and evolution in hip-hop, meaning the next level and the next level in my opinion refers to new ideas, new concepts, new content, just a new platform all together…”
“At the time when the documentary was taped, May of 2010, I was referencing in my mind, the Sean Garrett record [‘Massive Attack’], the ‘Bedrock’ verse, maybe a few sporadic verses I heard on some R&B songs and that was the conclusion I came to. A lot of people come to me that maybe didn’t like my comment, they reference music that’s been released in the last month. I said, ‘well, I can only go by the music I heard at the time with respect to my opinion as far as how progressive it was, or wasn’t.”
In her segment on the show “My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip-Hop” Tiye said:
“I don’t knock the sister because I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure on her just being the poster child for female rap in 2009 and 2010. But in terms of the preservation and the continuation and expansion of the art form of hip-hop music and culture, I can’t see what she’s creating…when she goes in the studio. Meanwhile, females like myself we in the underground paying dues. Like, we’re committed.”
