After years of label and legal drama, Jacki-O is focused on shifting negative stereotypes about female MCs by becoming the change she hopes to see.

The Miami rapper has been keeping busy with her music career, with her street mixtape, Griselda Blanco, dropping on the Web in two weeks. But when it comes to other women rappers in the game, she still thinks there’s a lot of work to do.

“Congrats to Nicki Minaj for doing her thing but a lot of things are still the same,” Jacki-O told VIBE. “Men need to start recognizing the talent that females have and let us eat a little bit [but] at the same time, we just have to continue to work as hard as they do, if not harder, and continue to grind.”

Jacki-O is currently gearing up to release her second book, Relentless (Jack Move Entertainment), which chronicles her life from growing up in inner-city Miami to signing and losing various major label deals. The book drops later this year.

“I’ve been getting a lot of negative press because of my last situations with record labels here in Miami,” she said. “There’s been a lot of rumors and things that have been said about me and I decided to put it out there so that people can see for themselves.”

In addition to promoting her book, the rapper-turnt-author has been advocating literacy to youth as the spokesperson for the Hip-Hop and Books Literacy Campaign by doing lectures and book tours in schools across the country.

“This is big because not only am I a Black female, but I come from the most poverty stricken area in Miami and I’m a rapper,” she said. “I figured that since a lot of kids today only listen to music, then if I write a book about myself maybe that will encourage them to read.” ⎯Starrene Rhett

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