Berko Lover

“She’s Good… For a Female”

Sexism /?sek?siz?m/ Noun: Prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.

With the music industry being male dominated, there is a great deal of sexism involved within it. For most women, they are sexually objectified in order to sell records and appeal to a larger male audience. The attention is not on their skills as artists but rather their assets as females. Women, who choose not to be sexualized, find themselves having to outwork not only other women in the industry but also their male counterparts. Although women are pressured to be overly sexual in order to sell, they are often times labeled as unladylike or sluts if their lyrics are promiscuous.

Sexism within the music industry can also be seen in the Cute-Girl Dismissal Syndrome. The Cute-Girl Dismissal Syndrome is when a woman is discredited of her talents simply based on the fact that she is attractive. On the flip side of that, if a female artist is not attractive according to society’s standards, her talent is disregarded and she is placed in the background. Furthermore, there are sexist ideas regarding the skills of female artists. A woman is not just a good drummer; she is a good drummer for a female. A woman is not just a good rapper; she is a good female rapper.

Can a female artist be successful without sexualizing herself? Can her success be on the same level as her male counterparts?

Known by her stage name Berko Lover, Tiaira Harris is a 23 year old artist from Baltimore ready to take on the sexism in the music industry. Majoring in Women Studies with a minor in English, she recently graduated from the University of Maryland-College Park in 2011 and is currently 1/5 of the Rap Collective, The Elite Hunters Club. Berko has a distinct voice that is poetic and sensual but still very powerful. As a feminist, she steps outside the invisible boxes created by society in regards to women and their sexuality. She embraces her femininity, but does not allow it to define or restrict who she is and the type of music she makes. With her lyrics, Berko Lover’s music challenges traditional stereotypical expectations of women.

Rise Africa recently received the opportunity to interview the lovely Berko Lover on her music and the double standards involved in the music industry. This is what she had to say…

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Update: Part Two here.

We’re still learning to read Audre Lorde, who should have been 79 today. We’re still learning to become the collectivity, the “we,” that would make reading Audre Lorde possible. The Audre Lorde that I think is especially worth reading is not the Audre Lorde that reads like a bumper sticker.  Nor is it the Audre Lorde that settles the score, once and for all, the Audre Lorde who puts the full stop on the conversations we’ve needed to have before we’ve had them.  The Audre Lorde I’m interested in is perhaps too queer to set things straight for us politically.  Which also means that it’s also not the Audre Lorde who exists as an alibi.  The Audre Lorde that’s most interesting to me is the Audre Lorde who is a complex, often contradictory historical figure, a figure whose brilliance resides not in her individual insight but in her capacity to creatively animate and inhabit the very contradictions in which she lived.  It is that kind of brilliance that makes her A. Lorde and not, well, a Lord; that is, not a god-like figure whose authority is to be deferred to once and for all, but someone whose life and work provide an rich world of problems, questions, and ideas worth thinking with, borrowing from, confronting, and, of course, disagreeing with.  I’m interested in claiming Audre Lorde as a human. Which is to say that in many ways, she was not, ultimately, that much unlike you or me.  Even in her radical difference.  Even because of it.

POOL PARTY (prod by Action Bastard)

Berko Lover