This was the first international exhibition that was held for three days by 37 artists spanning from South Minneapolis to South Africa. The multimedia convention celebrated the accomplishments of women in Hip Hop and included workshops, performances, readings and panel discussions that focused on the four elements of Hip Hop... emceeing, deejaying, break dancing and graffiti.

The B-Girl Be Summit was the event to make connections, build confidence, sharpen skills, and gain access to the tools to create music, poetry, film, rap, aerosol art, and dance. This event came at a crucial time in Hip-Hop, where images of women are often stereotypical and one-sided. B-Girl Be's mission is to dispel these myths. The event also came at a great time too, since June is considered international Black Music Month. Some of the women involved in B-Girl Be are Theresa Sweetland, education and community programs manager at Intermedia Arts; Desdamona, a Twin Cities spoken word artist; and Rachel Raimist, a filmmaker and activist.

Miranda Jane, a hip-hop journalist and editor stated what it took to be a B-Girl, "Originally, B-Girl meant break girl or Bronx girl. Breaking is the generic term for what is formally considered B-Boying or B-Girling by hip-hop purists, used to describe the style of dance stemming from hip-hop culture which emerged in the South Bronx during the early 1970s. Today, the term B-Girl has grown to encompass women who are directly involved with or heavily impacted by hip-hop culture."

The B-Girl Summit also emphasized and preached strength in numbers. Remy Martin, Shawnna and Lil' Kim are all prime examples of women who are a part of a crew full of males. The "lone lady in the crew" is a rule that holds true with both mainstream rappers and local b-girls and graffiti artists, and it's been an issue since the beginning of hip hop. If there only seems to be one space for a lady, women can wind up pitted against each other in ways they might not if they were collaborating.

"Growing up in hip hop, the values that I learned were about healthy competition; you get in a circle and freestyle and dance and battle, but in many spaces I've definitely seen it escalate and get borderline violent," says Rachel Raimist, a hip-hop filmmaker/organizer/educator and feminist studies Ph.D at the University of Minnesota. "There's something about taking out that competitive 'there's only one' idea; in terms of the mainstream, it's been this competitive space where there's only room for one girl...and we're proving that's not the case."

—By PlatinumSkillz