Christina Aguilera’s stunning 2007 Grammy Award show performance of James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s World” reinterpreted the Godfather of Soul’s declaration and turned it into a womanly rebuke. Few could have done it better. 9th Wonder’s female rap threat, Rapsody, who’s signed to his It’s a Wonderful World/Jamla group manages to cut her own improved, reinterpretation of the epic James Brown tune and does so without the B-girl pageantry that you might expect given her spot as the leading lady of her group, Kooley High.
Impatiently, we’ve been waiting for her and 9th to expose her new material. This track, ‘Man’s World,” from her upcoming Prelude to the Return of the B-Girl mixtape, is a temporary but burly fix. For now, we can all ignore the antagonisms that exist between the few female rappers and the largely dominated male hip-hop industry, which Rapdiddy touches on with the line ‘It ain’t ‘bout Big or J/ it’s ‘bout Lyte and Lauryn”. Just notice how she trounces all over what sounds like producer AMp’s best imitation of 9th Wonder’s famed Jay-Z ‘Threats” beat and blurs those gender lines like a pro, even if she claims to be ‘rookie of the year like I just started practice.”
