Various artists: Fly Girls! B-Boys Beware: Revenge of the Super Female Rappers

It's easy to imagine a more comprehensive survey of female MCs than this but not a more enjoyable one. Although Missy Elliott represents the superstar 90s and poet Nikki Giovanni the spoken-word 70s, Fly Girls! mostly concerns itself with more ephemeral pleasures from hip-hop's first decade, when partying and put-downs were all anyone needed to worry about. Bookended by an entertaining, hair-pulling spat between LA trio JJ Fad and the inimitable Roxanne Shanté (now a Cornell-educated psychologist, by the way), it celebrates such mayflies as Tanya Winley (Vicious Rap) and Princess MC (Pump Up the Bass), who released just one or two singles before going back to their day jobs. If the technique behind all the gum-snapping sass and skipping-rope rhyme schemes is often rudimentary, then the exuberance is palpable. These were characterful, seize-the-day MCs who, in the best possible way, loved the sound of their own voices.