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Today marks a week since Ms. Melodie’s untimely passing.

The Boogie Down Productions member and Brooklyn native was a pioneer in rap music whose hard-hitting delivery contained enduring socially progressive messages of self-empowerment.

DETAILS: Ms. Melodie Of Boogie Down Productions Is Dead

Despite how history has marked it, women have been instrumental in hip-hop culture since its inception, especially as emcees and DJs.

Although women’s contributions to hip-hop are often eclipsed due to, well, sexism, their impact on the globalization of hip-hop as a whole should not continue to be underestimated.

LIST: GlobalGrind’s 10 Favorite Up & Coming Female Rappers

Female emcees such as Roxanne ShanteAntoinette, Sha Rock, Sweet Tee, The Sequence, and Lady B, put the genre on the map in hip-hop’s early years, taking to wax just as forcefully and artfully as their male counterparts.

Hip-Hop Legends Unite: MC Lyte Interviews Salt Of Salt-N-Pepa

Check out the gallery celebrating some hip-hop’s earliest female pioneers.