There was a relentlessly awful pop song from the late-90s whose chorus went "I get knocked down but I get up again" -- and this lyric perfectly summarizes the career of Tairrie B -- sometimes literally, as "B" was once punched in the face by
Dr. Dre. She was the first white ,female rapper -- she looked like
Madonna and rapped liked
Eazy-E. Although she would later be cited (by cult film director John Waters, no less) as having paved the way for today's white female MCs like
Kreayshawn and
Iggy Azalea, her 1990 debut album,
Power of a Woman, despite being supported by hip-hop icons Eazy-E (this was released on Ruthless Records),
Schooly D and
Everlast (then of
Ice-T's "Rhyme Syndicate", not
House of Pain), the album failed to chart then, and B's second rap album got scrapped after a series of 1993 demos (released in 2010 as
Single White Female) and "B" went on to nu-metal with the bands Manhole (aka
Tura Satana) and
My Ruin.
Thing is, though, her hip-hop music, inclduign the 1993 recording she released for free on her Bandcamp, ended up being a lot more relevant than her metal career, and her hip-hop albums have dated much better than her nu-metal efforts (of which
Marilyn Manson once said, regarding B's "Tura Satana" performance, "that girl scares me"). So much so that "B" released a "comeback" rap album in 2015 (
Vintage Curses) to significantly more press than her metal bands have gotten -- even though it was a free download and she didn't tour to support it! What changed between 1990 and 2015? Well, Eazy-E's guest spot on "Anything You Want" suggests that there might have been a backlash from competing female MCs accusing Tairrie B of getting a record contract by sleeping with Eazy (to which he responds, "*** naw, she won't even give me the pussy")
The sound of
Power of a Woman is hard-hitting, backed by production by Schooly D, Eazy-E and Quincy Jones III. The concept of the album is essentially that Tairrie is "the gangster's moll", and this concept is supported by lyrical allusions to 30s gangster movies and even rhymes name-dropping Mae West and
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (which is set in the 1940s). The sound draws in spots from
N.W.A-style gangsta rap-style sampling, beat production and scratching, while aspects of "new jack swing" drip in via cuts like "Vinnie Tha' Moocha", the story of a man jocking Tairrie (guest verse by Everlast as "Vinnie"), which interpolates Cab Calloway's 1930s classic "Minnie the Moocher". QDIII also draws from reggae samples for the instrumental "Let The Beat Rock".
Another Rhyme Syndicate associate, Bilal Bashir, drops some funky sampled guitar rhythm on "Step 2 This". Perhaps the biggest standouts on the album are "Murder She Wrote", where Tairrie drops some strong lyrics over a QDIII instrumental that could have been an outtake from Ice-T's
O.G. Original Gangster, with the hook sampling
Eric B. and Rakim's "Follow the Leader" refrain, "a magnum as a microphone, murdering MCs", and the 8-minute "Ruthless Bitch" which was originally supposed to be a collaboration with N.W.A, until Dr. Dre punched Tairrie B, and, with Eazy-E's relationship with N.W.A already deteriorating, "Ruthless Bitch" turned into a diss towards Dr. Dre, whose assault was motivated by hearing an early demo of this track. B responds to Dre's woman-beating:
"As for the Grammys, I'll put that on the shelf
It takes a punk mother***er to play himself
Your best shot was weak, I didn't need no stitches"
She also calls Dre a "cartoon gangster" suggesting he is less tough than he makes himself out to be because he hit a woman, and questioning Dre's ability as a producer because of his liberal pulling from Ultimate Breaks & Beats, and suggesting that Dre places money above integrity. On this track and elsewhere on the album, Tairrie B draws lyrically from some kind of feminism, placing her lyrical content more in line with rappers like
Queen Latifah for her refusal to use sex to sell her music unlike some *other* female MCs, instead operating on her toughness and lyrical skill, both of which "B" has to the nth degree. She also addresses her whiteness in lyrics like:
"Quincy D' ll drop it
For the blonde bombshell from hell
And if you call me a devil... well, I'm Italian
But if you want to step and get wild
I'll take your ass out mafia style"
This album's failure to chart was analyzed by one of Tairrie B's fans on a YouTube comment, an African-American man who claimed that "the music industry" chose to push "lesser [white] MCs" like
Vanilla Ice over her. Alternatively, here's my free market capitalist, individualist perspective on the disappointment of Tairrie B's rap career: It had nothing to with "patriarchy" or racism (quite frankly, I don't understand what Vanilla Ice has to do with Tairrie B's album not doing well, since he wasn't even on the same label) and probably more to do with Ruthless Records' shortcomings as a record label, which were exasperated following Eazy-E's death; a lot of
Hopsin's hardest lyrics are directed towards Eazy's widow, Tomica Wright, for what Hopsin claims as Tomica's incredibly poor management when Hopsin was signed to Ruthless, who released his album
Gazing at the Moonlight in 2009.
Tairrie B's turn to metal also doesn't seem to be motivated by the failure of
Power of a Woman; she was well under way in recording a second album,
Single White Female in 1993, until, according to her Facebook page, she saw Ice-T's thrash metal band
Body Count and became motivated to form a rap-metal band. It's not as if B's metal bands ever had much more commercial success than her rap career. Today, Tairrie B is in her 50s, and has gotten more acclaim and media coverage as an MC than she did in her 20s.
But enough about Tairrie B's obvious rhyme skill and flow ability: Does
Power of a Woman hold up as an album? Yes, absolutely. The overall sound, even though aspects were clearly informed by early-90s sounds, is insanely fresh sounding, and could have been an album recorded today, and B's rhymes are insanely tight. Tairrie B is one of the essential female MCs, not to be missed.
