You could feel the music pulsate through your body and the old, stone walls of Sigi’s Caberet. Alongside the B-boys, B-girls contorted their bodies with strength and flexibility. Their movements were hard-hitting and precise with the heavy beats of the hip-hop music. The disc jockeys became one with the music as they spun, creating their own art.

An artist stood on the side of the room; the strokes of her paintbrush seemed to be inspired by the rhythm of the music. An emcee took the floor, pouring her soul into her poetic words.

Hip-hop is about more than music, more than dance, more than fashion — it’s a culture all its own. And behind the men who dominate the art are strong women with the same talent and passion.

On March 6 at Sigi’s Cabaret the Denver-area chapter of Hip Hop Congress hosted “Queenz of Hip Hop,” an event to honor women and highlight their roles in the hip-hop community.

The Emcee

“We tattoo our names across the sky; we make sure the clouds repeat all of our wonderful history; we are the things that make the flowers grow; we are the way the world really needs to go — we are the queens of hip-hop.”

LadySpeech, Quianna Ray, stood before the crowd, reciting her words with devotion and ardor, inspiring both the women and men in the room.

She said hip-hop was created out of the violence between “black and brown” people in the Bronx in the ‘70s, but that women were the foundation. She said women have always been the backbone and hip-hop wouldn’t have survived without them.

“We support them by holding down jobs while they go after their ideals,” she said. “A lot of the great producers out here, before they were great, it was the women who were supporting them. It was the wives and the girlfriends; it was living in your mother’s house.”

However, LadySpeech stressed that women not only play supporting roles, but leading roles as well as B-girls (female hip-hop dancers), emcees, DJs and graffiti artists. Hip-hop gives women a place to be equal to men, as opposed to rap where women are “put in a box and over-sexualized,” she said.

“Our hip-hop brothers are getting back to making sure we’re included and honoring the woman’s place,” she said. “They see that we should be on the throne.”

The Artist

Xencs L. Wing, Angelica Jimenez, dipped her paintbrush into a crimson, acrylic paint and, with delicate precision, applied it to her canvas. Except for occasionally turning around to watch the dance battles, she was focused on her creation.

While graffiti is the common art form associated with hip-hop culture, Xencs L. Wing said Hip Hop Congress invited her and her abstract painting style to join their project.

“It’s an art, and that’s what they want to focus on — creating and mastering your craft,” she said. “They wanted to showcase crafts that are cultivated from hip-hop. My style isn’t spray paint, but art [in general] is definitely one of the aspects of hip-hop.”

Xencs L. Wing said she thinks hip-hop is male-dominated, but it’s not intentional. She said women play an important part in the culture, but people — women included — tend to forget.

“But we’re a team,” she said. “The women help push and support. We are a part of it.”

The Teacher

Haze, Michele Fields, demonstrated tricks to a fellow B-girl during a break between battles. She slowed her body as much as possible to demonstrate each action of what are normally extremely fast-paced moves.

Haze, a hip-hop dance instructor in Pueblo and a member of the Soul Mechanics Crew in Colorado Springs, competed in the various battles at the event. She said she started dancing 22 years ago when she was 15 after moving to Colorado Springs from Atlanta. She learned most of what she knows from watching other dancers.

“What you get from the streets is that rawness of hip-hop,” she said. “Hip-hop is aggression, so when you get that from the streets there’s a lot more battles.”

Being a B-girl for more than 20 years, Haze has seen the hip-hop culture — and women’s involvement in it — evolve. She said she was glad to be a part of “Queenz of Hip Hop” and see women being respected within the community.

“They have to fight harder to get respect because hip-hop is a male dominated area and very few females come in and get their shine,” she said. “It takes years for a female to gain respect, but once they gain it, they never lose it.”

The Student

B-girl Adore, Najah Adore, pushed her way through the crowd to the center of the floor. She put her hands on the ground and pushed herself up into a handstand, then quickly spun her body around. B-girl Adore is 6.

Her dad teaches Cultural Dance Production at the Boys and Girls Club and at home he teaches her the same thing he teaches his students. B-girl Adore said she enjoys dancing and wants to battle at events like “Queenz of Hip Hop” when she gets older.

“We can do it too,” she said. Hip-hop knows no gender — or age.

The DJ

DJ Manizer, Dawn Koerner, stood behind two turntables with her headphones covering one ear. She created beats, usually in a 4/4 time signature, by looping portions of multiple songs to create emphasis. She called this style “break” mixed with hip-hop.

DJ Manizer, a former Metro student, said she started DJing in 2001 because it looked fun. She said she was excited to take part in the women-focused event because hip-hop is a male-dominated field.

“It’s great to put all of this talent under the same roof,” she said. “Some of the women here leave the men in their dust.”

The B-girl

Nurse Boogy, Marina Stankov-Hodge, and University of Colorado student Randi Fleckenstine embraced each other with mutual respect after the final B-girl battle; Nurse Boogy took the crown.

Nurse Boogy said she has been interested in hip-hop music since the late ’80s and during the early ’90s she and her friends would imitate dancers such as MC Hammer and Big Daddy Kane.

When she was 17 she saw some of her friends breakdancing at a party and decided she wanted to try that as well. When she moved to San Francisco she met a group of various male dance crews called the Hound Dawg Truckers and asked if she could practice with them. She said they weren’t supportive at first, but still allowed her to practice with them.

After she became more serious with her dance, she met other B-girls and eventually formed a crew called the Sisterz of the Underground, which consisted of B-girls and female emcees, DJs and graffiti artists.

They later distinguished the B-girls as a group called Extra Credit Kru and they have various videos on YouTube.

Nurse Boogy said women have played an important role in hip-hop from the beginning, but “like everything of interest and value in life, there are many sides to hip-hop and unfortunately there is the side that tends to exploit women [instead of showing what a woman’s real role is], which is to be strong, yet feminine, fierce but open, mothers, daughters and sisters, and most of all, [provide] a beautiful balance and [be] role models for younger women.”

Regardless of how women have been portrayed, she said women still have “soft power [and] artistic might” and have their place in the hip-hop community.