If you look around the current hip-hop landscape, it is being increasingly propelled by powerhouses like Remy Ma and Cardi B as well as nascent talents like fellow Bronxite Ice Spice.
The rise of these women as on-stage supernovas is in concert with the rise of women as decision-makers, culture influencers and authorities, pushing the genre and culture of hip-hop into its golden anniversary this summer.
When women are given the microphone, stage or any opportunity to meaningfully contribute or shape their industry, “dope sh–t happens,” according to TT Torrez.
In 2021, Torrez, another Bronxite, became the first woman of color to hold the “VP/Artist and Label Relations” position at HOT 97.
In that role, Torrez acts as a “gatekeeper” of sorts, according to HOT 97’s biographical entry, by overseeing which music tracks are played on the station’s airwaves, managing day-to-day operations as music director and essentially being the face of the station as vice president.
Torrez, 41, is also using that role to keep the door — once shut or only left slightly ajar by an “old boys club” — open for women to be headliners and icons at a time when they are faced with the intensity of long-held stereotypes and misogyny that undercut their talents and accomplishments.
Torrez had a major hand in curating a lineup dominated by the women defining modern day hip-hop — including the aforementioned Cardi B and Ice Spice as well as GloRilla and Coi Leray — for Hot 97’s premier event Summer Jam on June 4 at Long Island’s UBS Arena.
“For as long as I’ve been in radio, going from different market to market, I’ve always been that girl who has been vocal on and off the microphone about women in hip-hop and telling our own stories and narratives,” she said. “From an executive side … there haven’t been a lot of women like me who have had these jobs, so it’s on me to continue promoting and elevating these stories.”
Born in the Bronx to a…
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