Q+A: Arusa Qureshi on Her Love Letter to Women in UK Hip-Hop
Interview with a debut author!
Music Book Club’s co-producer Carly Eiseman recently went to London and sent me a beautiful book that she found along the way: Flip The Script: How Women Came to Rule Hip Hop by Arusa Qureshi. After reading it, I had to reach out to Arusa to find out more!
Tamara Palmer/Music Book Club: How did the opportunity to write Flip the Script come about, and what was your process like to put it together?
Arusa Qureshi: Hip hop is something I’m really passionate about not just as a genre of music but as a movement, as an important part of culture. It’s something I love to write about and to analyse and delve into. I’ve written quite a bit about American hip-hop and the roots of the genre but I wanted to shine a light on women in the UK that I felt were changing the game. The thing that really kicked off my whole thinking about this book is the fact that the winners of both the Scottish Album of the Year Award and the Welsh Music Prize in 2020 were women rappers, Nova and Deyah. And beyond the UK, Denise Chaila was announced as the winner of the Choice Music Prize Irish Album of the Year 2020. Maybe that was a coincidence but to me, it felt important.
When 404 Ink opened up submissions for their new non-fiction Inklings series in late 2020, I was encouraged by some lovely pals to put in a pitch. In that original pitch, I made sure to mention that I wanted this book to be based around interviews with women in UK hip-hop so that I could tell their stories accurately. Obviously, I had a huge, ambitious list of people I wanted to interview and that didn’t work out because of time and honestly, probably partly because I think people were all Zoom-ed out at that point in 2020/2021 (and I don’t blame them!). But I was very lucky to be able to chat to some phenomenal women including Cookie Crew, Speech Debelle and Enny.
What was the reception for it like in the UK?
It’s been overwhelming in the most positive way. I know it sounds strange but you kind of forget that people might actually read this thing you bring out so it’s been lovely to see people continuing to share it and continuing to send messages about it. I was really lucky because the Guardian published an extract from the book after it came out and other publications like Clash mentioned it. Mary Anne Hobbs also gave the book a shoutout on BBC 6Music which blew my mind and Shirley Manson from Garbage shared it on Instagram and messaged me to say she enjoyed it. I interviewed Kae Tempest for an article for the NME in 2022 and when we started the call, they said congratulations and I honestly couldn’t believe they had heard of it. It’s amazing and I have appreciated all the support so much.
You accurately describe the book as a "love letter to UK hip hop and to the women changing the game" — are you writing more love letters?
I would absolutely love to in the future! I think music has always been an important soundtrack to social and political movements, going back far into history. It’s something about the camaraderie and community aspect of music and how it really stirs people to do something and make a difference. I'm interested in that aspect of hip-hop as an art form and would love to keep writing about it and telling stories about people that have done and are doing brilliant things.
I love that the book contains a QR code leading to your playlist for the book, so readers can listen as they read. Can you turn us on to any new hip-hop artists that you've loved since it was published in 2021?
I try to add to that playlist when I can, so if you keep an eye on it, you might come across some new artists every now and then! But at the moment, I'd say I'm really enjoying Cristale, John Glacier, Niques, OneDa and Lex Amor.
Do you have any favorite music books that you can recommend to us?
There are so many writers whose work in this area I adore and respect, like Kathy Iandoli and Clover Hope. And going back, my ultimate heroes in terms of hip-hop writing and race/gender and music are people like Tricia Rose, Dream Hampton, Imani Perry and Joan Morgan.
I’m a huge fan of Hanif Abdurraqib – They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us is one of my favourites. Other books I always recommend are The Sound of Being Human by Jude Rogers, Audrey Golden's I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records, This Woman's Work by Kim Gordon and Sinéad Gleeson, and Shine Bright by Danyel Smith.
Previously in our Q+A series:
Lily Moayeri on Her Favorite Music Books and Writing from a Personal Place
Megan Volpert on Why Alanis Morissette Matters and Writing 15 Books in 18 Years
Mark Swartz on Biggie + Yoko Ono as a Crime-Fighting Duo and Other Fictional Ideas
Annie Zaleski on Cher, Stevie Nicks and Pushing Past Writing Fears
Nelson George on His Next Book and Making Mixtapes in Paper Form
Michaelangelo Matos on Writing and Editing Music Books
