The Next Generation of Female Rap Lives on TikTok

2022 was a huge year for female rap, with a seemingly endless stream of breakout hits from talented female emcees. The source of that stream? TikTok.

One look at any “artists to watch” list for 2023 will confirm that the “rap girlies” are taking over. Many of these emerging artists currently on the industry's radar broke onto the scene with singles that feel more like anthems, records that spread like wildfire across social media. Take BIA's 2021 hit “Whole Lotta Money," or even Coi Leray's “Twinnem” or her more recent and inescapable “Players." A viral track can lay the necessary groundwork for an artist to make the leap from emerging to established.

There's no denying the incredible impact TikTok in particular has had on the music industry — Insider published a report at the end of 2022 that called the app “an essential promotional tool" for both artists and record labels. Women in rap seem to have mastered that tool, racking up viral singles and efficiently translating the social stardom they've earned into high-charting hits. The next generation of female rap lives on TikTok and is successfully using the platform as a career launching pad.

To celebrate this next guard of female rap, TikTok launched their week-long #WomenInHipHop campaign on February 22. This special Black History Month initiative includes a partnership with MuchMusic to produce interviews with rappers like Rico Nasty, ExMiranda, Haviah Mighty, and Big Boss Vette to discuss Black music and culture, a “RapGirlies” playlist banner on the app's Sounds page, and a billboard above Toronto's Scotiabank Arena featuring rappers who have found major success on the app like Latto, Monaleo, and Coi Leray.

Some of TikTok's most impressive success stories also include young artists like Ice Spice, GloRilla, and Flo Milli. Ice Spice is one of the most buzzworthy acts of 2023, with over 51 million Spotify streams and YouTube views combined. Ice has become known for previewing snippets of her tracks on TikTok, then reaping massive streaming numbers: “In Ha Mood,” “Gangsta Boo” feat. Lil Tjay, “Munch (Feelin' U)”, and “Bikini Bottom," four songs off of her six-track debut EP Like..?, currently have over 119 million collective Spotify streams. Per Time, the TikTok hashtag #munch has over 2 billion views, and a hashtag of the rapper's name has over 4 billion.

GloRilla's springtime release “F.N.F. (Let's Go)” with producer Hitkidd turned into a summer smash after going viral on TikTok, earning the rapper her first Billboard Hot 100 placement and a 2023 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance, her first-ever. Her subsequent single “Tomorrow 2” featuring Cardi B made it to the Billboard Hot 100's Top 10, and its sound on TikTok boasts over 786k total creations. Both songs have since earned RIAA Gold-certification. Alabama rapper Flo Milli also earned Gold-certification for her songs “Beef FloMix” and “In the Party,” thanks in large part to their TikTok virality.

Houston's very own Monaleo, who added Flo Milli to the remix of her song “We Not Humping,” has seen a few singles from her discography get the viral — and dance challenge, done by everyone from Addison Rae to the Riverdale cast — treatment, including her breakout record “Beating Down Yo Block.”

“TikTok has become a career starter and I love it. I think it’s dope that artists are able to share their art on an app for fun and are granted opportunities to sustain themselves and their families,” Monaleo tells Teen Vogue. “I think it offers women a broader audience and fresh ears. I love how you can casually scroll and hear a song that resonates with you. Your first introduction being the art itself gives artists the opportunity to be heard without bias.”

For this reason, TikTok has become, arguably, the go-to destination for users of all ages to discover music both old and new. New York rap star Lola Brooke's song “Don't Play With It” featuring Billy B was released in the spring of 2021, but didn't gain mainstream recognition until Lola's From the Block live performance of the song went viral on TikTok a year later.

“Once I saw North [West] and Kim [Kardashian]'s video to 'Don't Play With It,' I knew the song was viral,” Lola Brooke tells Teen Vogue with a laugh. “A viral moment doesn't mean a song is a hit or that it reached everyone, so I wouldn't say that indicated the song's reach. I knew it was having a moment, though, for sure.”

“Don't Play With It” still has quite an impressive reach, however, with over 16 million Spotify streams to date, and co-signs from Pusha T, Cardi B, and well, Kim K. But like Lola says, the misconceptions around what a viral moment does and doesn't mean are important factors for artists who want to ensure their music has a life of its own outside of an app. According to Monaleo, one of the most damning illusions of virality is “that you immediately become rich once a song goes viral.” “There are a lot of steps that you have to follow up with after going viral, it doesn’t immediately reward you,” says Monaleo. “It takes a lot to crossover from being an artist whose music is cool on the Internet versus being an artist who is respected and invited into certain spaces.”

Netting viral hits as an artist, then, is a technique — a science, if you will — with the goal of introducing themselves to a larger audience rather than gaining traction on the charts. After all, mainstream success relies on a devoted fanbase. Going viral on TikTok can be a shock to the system, though, with following counts often doubling or quadrupling in size in the matter of just a few weeks. But Lola Brooke isn't one to shy from the spotlight.

“This is what I put in the work for. I look forward to having new fans, reaching new people & inspiring more people as my journey goes on. I don't feel the pressure to go viral again — if it happens, it happens,” Lola says. Monaleo agrees, adding that the key ingredient to the recipe for TikTok virality is “being unique," because “the Internet loves people and things that stand out.”

For many of the women in rap who have propelled their careers on TikTok, this looks like creating content that not only promotes their music, but showcases their personalities. “TikTok is a place where you can be yourself, be free and have fun at the same time,” continues Lola. TikTok offers artists a level of authenticity and opportunity for interaction with fans that builds trust, community, and most importantly, a kind of grassroots interest.

Maiya the Don wholly understands the power of that grassroots interest. The 20-year-old rapper grew up wanting to be an entertainer, battle rapping her brother and watching 106 & Park's Freestyle Fridays. Even so, Maiya first went viral on TikTok as a beauty content creator. “[I] was talking shit and just being myself, like me being silly or doing makeup," Maiya tells Teen Vogue. Now, Maiya is best known for her breakout hit “Telfy,” a song inspired by Black-owned luxury fashion brand Telfar. Writing “Telfy” only took Maiya about two hours, and she knew “from the moment" she recorded it that the song would go viral.

“I posted [the music video snippet] and it was late at night and I went to bed, woke up, and it had a million views,” she says. “So I was like, ‘Oh, shit. Okay, let me post it on Instagram.’ And the same thing happened. It had a million views that same day. So I was like, ‘All right, let me post it on Twitter.' And then I got a million views… I was like, ‘Okay, this is going to be crazy.’”

Since going viral, Maiya says she hasn't changed her approach to TikTok. “I use TikTok as the way to connect with my fans more than I use it to promote my music,” she says. “I started TikTok to build my community for Maiya The Don the person so that they'll support Maiya The Don with whatever she's doing, whether it's music, hair, makeup, drinking a bottle of water… You could push your music all day long and promote it and if people don't care about you, they're not going to care about what you're doing.”

This outlook is part of why Maiya was chosen as a member of TikTok's first Visionary Voices list, a class of 15 Black creators who use the platform to “educate, entertain, and advocate” for the Black community on and off of the app. Maiya isn't the only female rapstar on the list — Ice Spice was also selected as an honoree.

“Our first-ever Visionary Voices list honors a diverse group of trendsetting creators, changemakers and Black-owned businesses across the TikTok community. This Black History Month and year-round, we’re proud to celebrate the collective brilliance and visionary impact of #BlackTikTok," Shavone Charles, head of diversity and inclusion communications at TikTok tells Teen Vogue exclusively. "Visionary Voices honorees Ice Spice and Maiya the Don have succeeded on TikTok because they've authentically built supportive communities that are invested in their success and overall journey. Their success shows that TikTok has become a powerful vessel and music discovery engine for the next generation of Black women in music and hip-hop."

This sentiment is echoed by Maiya, who calls TikTok “the platform for music to succeed." TikTok has especially proven to be the platform for female rap to succeed, becoming a creative hub and industry-approved foundation for emcees to build community with their fans and with each other. Flo Milli recently released the remix to her smash hit “Conceited,” featuring Lola Brooke and Maiya the Don; GloRilla brought Lola Brooke out as a surprise guest at her New York City concert on February 22; Flo Milli brought Monaleo on her last tour with her; Maiya and Lola were caught being goofy together in the front row of NYFW ‘23. The proof is everywhere, from the booth to the stage and beyond — the female rappers of TikTok are carving out space for themselves and making sure there’s room for their peers to succeed.

“[Female rappers are] all coming together, making space to be heard, and showing our range,” says Lola. Maiya agrees, adding that the female rap community is actively being fostered by “women who are comfortable in themselves and who they are as an artist.” 

“I think naturally people are going to look at each other as competition. It is what it is. But the women that I've connected with are really sweet," says Maiya. "I can't really speak for everybody else's experience, but I think you get what you put in. And I feel like the connections that I've made have always been very genuine, so there's been nothing but that for me.”

TikTok's relationship with female rap will only continue to deepen as more and more artists rise to the top of the For You Page and then the top of the charts. Perhaps the most special part of this relationship is the app's ability to break down the walls between artist and fan and the walls between “female rap” and rap at large. More women in rap are seeing mainstream success thanks to TikTok, leveling out the playing field in a genre that can be difficult for women to earn widespread recognition and respect. The rap girlies are taking over, and they are coming for the algorithm and the airwaves.

“I want to be remembered for being original, being myself, being kind, and being that b*tch,” says Maiya the Don matter-of-factly. “And being the biggest rapper ever. Not as a female rapper, but rapper. Period.”