Ask anyone to recite the lyrics to PinkPantheress’ chart-topping “Boy’s A Liar Pt. 2” featuring Ice Spice they usually’ll just as likely — if not involuntarily — conjure up the image of Ice Spice’s flurry of reddish-orange curls.

Since splashing onto the scene last fall together with her viral song “Munch (Feelin’ U)” the rap newcomer has enraptured audiences not only together with her distinctly Latest York delivery and down-to-earth attitude, but her look.

Between her signature afro, always-primped nails and Y2K aesthetic, Ice Spice is amongst a rising wave of female rappers — including Flo Milli, GloRilla, Megan Thee Stallion and others — whose expressive hair and makeup looks are as key to their musical personas as their lyrical flow.

It’s a phenomenon that goes way back. When Salt-N-Pepa within the ’80s released their global hit, “Push It,” the trio’s matching, asymmetrical haircuts were heard just as loudly as their knack for crafting hooks.

It wasn’t long after Brooklyn, Latest York, native Lil’ Kim released her debut album “Hard Core” in 1996 — which made the very best debut on the Billboard charts for a female rap artist on the time — that she began to garner notoriety for her audacious fashion and sweetness decisions.

“She was the contour queen,” recalled Nzingha, Lil Kim’s then-makeup artist. “She contoured in all places. Sometimes she’d do it without me and I’d come back and just, ‘Girl — that shouldn’t be what I gave you.’”

Lil’ Kim donned fluorescent wigs, heavily lined lips and iridescent eye shadow: She was over-the-top in her glam all the time, and in doing so proved that female rappers didn’t need to resign femininity to achieve legitimacy within the male-dominated rap game.

Around the identical time, R&B powerhouse Mary J. Blige was coming up and have become known for her nude looks, eventually collaborating with MAC Cosmetics on a nude lipstick in 2020.

Due to her soft glam M.O., it was a shock when Blige appeared wearing daring, dark lipstick within the 1995 music video for “Not Gon’ Cry.”

“Everybody thinks she wore a black lipstick, however it was wasn’t black — it was eggplant,” said Nzingha, who crafted Blige’s look that day, inspired by a practice in Nigeria’s Wodaabe tribe through which men paint their lips black or blue to point out off the whiteness of their teeth. “The whiter your teeth, the more marriage material and wealthy it meant you might be.”

Lauryn Hill, meanwhile, became known for her signature brown lip-liner and her lush locs, and Erykah Badu — who fronted a Givenchy campaign in 2014 — has sported an array of natural hairstyles throughout her profession, including braids, blowouts and an afro.

Modern-day hip-hop monarch Nicki Minaj, like Lil’ Kim, has often experimented with colourful wigs and makeup. After years of referring to herself as a Barbie, Minaj fittingly landed a feature on the soundtrack for Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” film — which she dropped at life with Ice Spice, after all.

Here, a glance back on a few of hip-hop’s most iconic beauty looks.