A couple years ago, Beyoncé Knowles defiantly declared her independence as a woman.  She didn't need a man, she bought her own diamonds, she paid her own bills.  The car I'm driving?  I bought it!  The rocks I'm rocking!  I bought it!  I depend on me. Riiiight.

This ushered in a new era of women everywhere throwing their arms in the air, and claiming their independence from their breadwinning men who supported their material needs.  Meanwhile, Kuttin Kandi would be part of the new breed making noise for the true representation of "independent women" in hip hop.  

A little background - in 2000, Kuttin Kandi was the first female to make it to the USA DMC Finals.  She's part of 5th Platoon, along with Neil Armstrong, Vin Roc, Do Boy, Roli Rho, and latest member I.Emerge.  

While most of the Platoon has stopped battling, I.Emerge has been the breath of fresh air for the formerly battle hungry 5th, representing the crew in the DMCs, ITFs, and Vestaxes.  The rest of the crew is keeping busy with other things - "Daddy Dog is doing an MTV tour, Roli is in the Asian party scene, Neil Armstrong is working on the Original mixtape series, 1, 2, and now on 3.  Vinroc is still with us, but touring with Triple Threat doing shows with Shortkut and Apollo," explains Kuttin Kandi. 

We've heard the story about girls complaining about how hard it is to be taken seriously in hip hop.  By now, this has now become nothing more than a bad pickup line for the symmetrical dude with the crazy MCing skills.  Kuttin Kandi has never been one to play on the fact that she's female.  "I know too many female Djs that get gigs and don't even know how to mix!" she exclaims.  "And that's not fair for the other average female DJs who do practice, and for the other female MCs who have been holding weight and who really have skills.  That's not respect for women empowerment, because you want to win the respect from the majority of the MCs who happen to be predominantly male.  And you know that they're not going to respect women if they see wack MCs or DJs that aren't representing correctly.  We need good representation in the music business."  

She feels the same way about other rarities in hip hop, including Asians.  This brings me to Jin, the 20 year old Chinese rapper, who swept 106 & Park's Freestyle Friday for 8 weeks in a row, and was eventually signed to Ruff Ryders.  Despite his unbelievable freestyling skills, I tell her about my disappointment with a number of Jin's recent tracks that he has put out from his full length and my worry about him just turning into "an Asian sensation" through marketing, rather than someone with skills.  

"I haven't heard his tracks yet so it wouldn't be fair to me to comment on them.  I mean, he is one of the few Asians out there, he's on the front lines.  It's going to be hard for him to decide who will be his marketing team.  I wouldn't market him as an Asian MC, it would be a given that he's representing Asians already.  He should speak on panels, he should definitely represent Asians by being involved in the community, and speaking up and doing interviews.  But as far as marketing him, his Asianness shouldn't be the full concentration, because that would be Asian exploitation."  

She compares his situation to Eminem's.  "I think the way that Eminem blew up, he didn't market himself as a white boy.  If I were to market an Asian artist, not just Jin, but any artist, I would market it on skills rather than their rare quality.  People are always frantic about marketing schemes, and you honestly won't find longevity in that.  You know, part of the reason why I think Eminem has lasted this long, maybe because he is white, but maybe he feeds off that in a discreet way.  He doesn't put on his flyers, "White Boy Eminem, Dope MC," she laughs.

Although not as popular as she is for her DJing, Kuttin Kandi is also a spoken word artist and poet.  Kuttin Kandi has been writing poems since she was 7, and I wonder if she would ever follow that natural progression to MCing.  Here and there, she does do some freestyling with her all female collective, the Anomolies. 

"Despite my poems taking on more of a rhymey effect and the fact that I think, 'Wow, we don't really have a lot of Asian female MC's out there,' it would be easy for me right now to just come out and still win some love, since I have a name in DJing.  But at the same time, I know I'm not an MC, and I know where I draw the line."  

No MCing.  But it's not like she has a shortage of other activities that she has been working on over the past little while.  Kuttin Kandi is just starting to get into production.  She's also a party rocker, and an outspoken activist on police brutality, the war, women's rights, women empowerment, and stopping sex trafficking in the Phillipines.  Seriously, is this not the epitome of the independent woman?  

Well, Kuttin Kandi didn't think so.  Starting two years ago, she realized she didn't really know she was, and started on this path to discover exactly who she was.  I was shocked.  If she didn't think she was an independent woman, then who is?   

"I thought I had a lot of independence and women's strength, but you know, I really didn't possess that.  I mean part of me did, but I think independence comes from a lot more than just being able to survive financially and physically. It's a spiritual venture, which a lot of people don't realize.  It's this spiritual venture that goes as far as surviving life in general, not just financially, but living life without having to feed into attachments to physical nature.  It's being yourself and not conforming and sticking to your ideas and goals, and just loving yourself.  I put a two year hiatus into my activity in the community and activism, not that I stopped caring, but I realized that I needed to stop organizing for awhile only because I was being drained personally in my life.  I had a lot of family affairs and personal issues to take care of."     

Kuttin Kandi's financial problems ran the gamut of losing her house, selling her house of 20 years, her mum losing her job, having the house foreclosed with no electricity, and not being able to pay the phone bill. "A lot of people don't think I go through that because they saw me in a magazine, or saw me doing shows all over the place.  But hey, when the money's gone, it goes straight to bills."

She had a realization that she was putting herself in places where she didn't need to be.  "I definitely had to recleanse myself and put myself in a newer position so I could be a stronger activist, and a stronger independent woman that I wanted to be.  And I'm at the stage right now, in my career, where I'm at the height where I'm trying to live off what I love doing, so I can bring back that strength into my scene, into my music, to speak up more, to use that as a tool to make waves for change."  

"I say this really passionately because a lot of people are activists, without realizing that they have to activate themselves. I think you need to venture [within] yourself, you need to fight for yourself, you need to struggle for yourself, in order to fight for others.  I don't think people realize that because when you're able to find that self-strength, you're able to fight anything," she says passionately.  

Looking ahead, Kuttin Kandi is eagerly preparing for the launch of her official site in June, kuttinkandi.com, with a huge celebration to accompany it.  An even bigger celebration will follow in October, to celebrate her birthday.  Both lineups are being kept top secret at the moment, but you can be assured that there will be some crazy and known heads at the shows.