The concept of this weekend’s Ladyfest — Cincinnati’s iteration of the interdisciplinary
fest promoting women involved in arts and activism — began in Olympia, Wash., in the summer of 2000 as a six-day festival of female bands, artists and speakers. Back then, calling oneself a feminist was not as fashionable as it is now, thanks in part to more mainstream female celebrities like
Beyoncé, Amber Rose and Taylor Swift, who have owned the F-word in years since.
Ladyfest 1.0 featured workshops on guitar lessons and auto mechanics, showcasing
bands and musicians like Sleater-Kinney,
Bangs, the Need, Cat Power and Bratmobile — many that grew out of the progressive culture in Olympia, where the Riot Grrrl feminist Punk movement had one of its major moments in the 1990s. Its origins undoubtedly had an effect on how the festival has grown and adapted to the rapidly shifting cultural
landscape in the ensuing years, moving like a swarm across the globe and finding a foothold in cities where the need arises for women’s voices to be heard.
The fest’s continued relevance as a platform for feminist artists and their advocates is fueled in part by Ladyfest’s status as a wholly participatory, volunteer-led event.
“Anyone can have a Ladyfest,” says Rachelle Caplan, the main instigator for Ladyfest Cincinnati. “Each is its own organization and establishes itself according to the wants and needs of the community it supports and planners’ abilities.”
A decidedly more Punk/activist-leaning festival than Lilith Fair, a now-defunct “celebration of women in music” which operated from 1997 to 1999, Ladyfest filled the void left in the absence of any ostensible platform for female voices. In 2010, Lilith Fair founder and musician Sarah McLachlan tried to bring back the festival with less-than-successful sales and attendance. In a 2011 Rolling Stone interview, the Canadian singer described the reason the revival flopped: “In 12 years, women have changed a lot. Their expectations have changed, the way they view the world has changed, and that was not taken into consideration.”
Like their predecessors, those involved in Ladyfest Cincinnati are striving to embody those same tenets of grassroots collaborative feminism, advocating for ideological aims over commercial ones and aiming to address the interests of local female artists and their advocates.
Angie Rawers, known as “Abiyah,” has booked Ladyfest’s Hip Hop/Electronic stage at Apartment 23 in Northside (where she’s also performing). Abiyah’s work as a performer and promoter crosses genres. She got her start doing “floetry” (poetry over Hip Hop beats) at Café Cin-Cin downtown the same year Ladyfest began on the other side of the country. By 2002, she was opening up for acts at MidPoint.
As a booker, Abiyah regularly finds local slots for national performers and curated six months of Hip Hop shows at the Comet, with different sub-genres playing each month. Yet despite her credibility, it’s still an uphill battle, and she says she’s experienced “slut-shaming” in direct proportion to the success she’s seen in 15 years in the game.
“Being an attractive woman, (people think) I must be fucking every single person that I book,” she says. “When you’re a woman in Hip Hop — no matter what kind, trap or conscious — at some point you must’ve fucked somebody.”
The thought that women are only useful in the industry as sexual objects is still pervasive in the music business — regardless of genre. Slut-shamed if they do, and out of work if they don’t, such precarious positions with music-industry types happen regularly, so having an event for women, by women can act as a powerful antidote. “The women are in charge, getting stronger and starting to flex our muscles,” she says.
Music scene veteran Dana Hamblen played her first show in 1989, as a basist for a shock rock band opening up for The Butthole Surfers. She began her longest-running band Fairmount Girls in 1996, playing drums throughout the past few decades with a cast of mostly women band mates.
The band played the Dayton Ladyfest in the early to mid-2000s and is playing Ladyfest Cincinnati Friday night at the Northside Tavern. “I’m glad someone or a team of someones finally made it happen here,” Hamblen says. “Cincinnati is a great music town, and right now the ladies are making a lot of noise in the arts. It’s time for radical women.”
Megan Standifer (“LoAhmmi”) got her first record deal in 1997 as one half of the first Cincinnati Hip Hop duo, Nadanuf. Their big hit was a version of Kurtis Blow’s seminal song “The Breaks” with the icon himself.
The music she makes now reflects the emcee’s socially and spiritually conscious
development, and — tasked with finding a new audience for her music — LoAhmmi says, “the revolution of tech has changed everything. You don’t even need a label anymore.”
She sums up the feelings expressed by most of the women participating in the
three-day festival as both volunteers and artists: “This is the perfect moment, the perfect
crowd. And it goes along with what I stand for as an artist and as a woman.” ©
This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2015.