Okayplayer presented an in-depth conversation with Rapsody

Last weekend (September 28-29th) The Art of Cool Festival went down in Durham, North Carolina. The highlight of the festival, you probably heard, was seeing Little Brother — Phonte, Rapper Big Pooh, and 9th Wonder — reunite and perform for the first time in a decade.

READ:What it Was Like to Watch Little Brother Reunite at the Art of Cool Festival in North Carolina [RECAP]

The performances was the aspect of the festival that made the most noise. But there was a whole bunch of awesome activations happening throughout the weekend.

Local non-profit Innovate Your Cool held a number of panels. Okayplayer presented one of these talks. The conversation, which was held at American Underground, was about hip-hop and feminism. It featured North Carolina rapper Rapsody sitting down with Dr. Yaba Blay, a professor at NCCU and published author.

During the convo, Rapsody held nothing back when discussing preferring being a “womanist” over being labeled a feminist, despite her strong stance on making music for black women:

I use to feel like I was a feminist but when I started to see the bashing of men, I didn’t think that was cool so I felt I identified better with being a womanist. A person who can appreciate and fight for the plight of women but also embrace the importance of men.

WATCH:Little Brother Reunite and Perform Together for The First Time in Nearly a Decade

At one point, Dr. Yaba asked a crucial question about hip-hop's sometimes hostile relationship with women:

How can I as a woman, and feminist, love a genre of music that often times degrades me and at times just equate me to sexual advances but at the same time gets me hype?

A hard place, right? It’s a question that can’t be easily answered. Rapsody responded by saying:

This is why we need to have these discussions to allow different perspectives to be heard and allow us to meet on common ground.

Rapsody and Dr. Yaba spent the convo wrestling with tough themes like this. But Rapsody still found some time to show love to Cardi B

What I love about her, outside of just her being authentic and herself, is, as one of the bigger faces in hip-hop she takes her platform and celebrates other women.

It was a riveting conversation. Check it out below.