The Battles Of G-Baby →

I have a story in the new issue of the Texas Observer. It’s the first in the magazine’s new monthly format, which is exciting — previously, the magazine ran bi-weekly, so this one will be on stands for twice as long.

The story is about Whitney Perkins, who raps under the name G-Baby. I first met Whitney when I was sitting in on a performance/sharing at Travis County Correctional Complex — Kat teaches theater classes to women incarcerated there, and she invited me to see their end-of-term project. Whitney was definitely the most charismatic performer that day, but I was still very surprised to see her retire a 5-time champion on 106 & Park’s Freestyle Friday a few months later.

The article is about battle rap, and sexism and homophobia in hip hop, and Whitney’s completely indomitable spirit. I’m pretty proud of how this one came out — give it a read, will you?