Purse Tag

In the summertime of 2020, Sesali Bowen was working on her memoir Bad Fat Black Girl: Notes from a Trap Feminist. As she reflected on her experiences growing up in what she calls “the bad b-tch era,” she realized that while queer and female rappers were having a moment in Hip-Hop, there have been no podcasts to capture it. So Bowen went concerning the business of making one. She reached out to Pierre Phipps, one half of the rap duo Freaky Boiz, to assist her co-host and the show, Purse First, launched that following January.  The phrase comes from a Black colloquialism which Bowen believes originated from street-based, sex work culture. The complete phrase, “Purse first, ass last” speaks to the notion...