"What attracts me to trap is the way of telling things, all very raw and provocative, constantly hesitating, talking about ugly things: whores, drugs and money. It's very punk, it doesn't matter." The speaker is Zowie (23 years old), a girl born in Paris who has passed through Granada, Marseille, London and, now, Barcelona. For her, this southern and electronic variant of rap is "a way of feeling powerful, even though I have nothing." Through friends she began to make her own subjects. "One day, as a joke, I took advantage of a mini studio that we had set up at home and recorded Raxeta". She proudly defends that term, an adaptation of the English word ratchet, which she came up to derogatorily call neighborhood girls who dress conspicuously. "For me, a ratchet is someone like me, a neighborhood girl, humble, who wears cheap clothes and imitations of luxury brands, and in a somewhat provocative way." In addition to her friends from Pxxr Gvng —her partner is their leader, Yung Beef—, she highlights other girls within the current scene, such as the now untraceable Somadamantina ("in trap she is the best in Spain without a doubt, and I think who will be back soon") or her friends Tomasa del Real or Ms Nina, whom she defines as "the mommies of reggaeton."

The latter is Jorgelina Andrea Torres, a 25-year-old Argentine who, at 14, arrived with her family in Motril (Granada). "At first it was hard, I didn't know anyone, but my parents wanted a better life for me," she recalls. She began to express herself through digital collages that she posted on Tumblr —and today she sells in the Espacio Ananas gallery— imbued with the aesthetics with which she had grown up ("as a girl I watched a lot of MTV. Madonna, Britney... all that"), but the music gained ground. She also started out with few ambitions, with a "half-joking" song, Pesao, about the comments of certain kids on the net. "I just wanted to do something fun. I thought: 'Why would I do trap, talking about the streets and drugs, if I haven't lived that in my life?' That is why she decided on rhythms closer to reggaeton, to make "dance music", which she combines with her collages and her work as a waitress on weekends.

Nina speaks of Tomasa del Real as "the first woman I knew who did reggaeton." This 29-year-old Chilean believes that this style "has become Latin American pop. It talks about other things, more real, closer to everyday life, instead of Disney-type things. Perhaps today we are looking for more sincerity than decorations and more evasion than suffering". Despite living in Iquique, where she opened a tattoo studio a few years ago, she has a smooth relationship and collaborates with like-minded Spanish musicians. "I recently got to Chanel, which is great, and Bad Gyal too," she says.

She refers to the youngest of this generation of girls. Of Algerian parents, Tania Chanel has lived in Jerez and Mallorca and, at 16, is one of the latest revelations on the trap scene, thanks to songs like Manita de Fátima or La corona es mía, in which her voice bathed in autotune sings "Fuck Letizia, I have the crown." "Now I see that many girls have come out, and that's cool. Before there were only guys," she says. If she is one of the newcomers, the Catalan Bad Gyal is no less. At 19, she started singing her own songs just over six months ago. "As a child I was crazy about Destiny's Child and Sean Paul", she remembers, and from there she delved into styles such as dancehall or trap. At her friends Pawn Gang's studio she recorded her first song last October. "I wanted to test my voice with the autotune, I found it funny. We made a song like that, for laughs, and we saw that it was cool". That was followed by more, and a version of Rihanna's Work that ended up skyrocketing her popularity online, without her having yet to leave her job at a bakery. Like her colleagues from her Pawn Gang, she uses Catalan within the sound of trap — "but it's nothing politically committed or vindictive," she clarifies —, although lately she combines it with Spanish.

Almost all of them know each other, in real life or through the Internet. Many have collaborated with each other or are friends, and refer to each other even though they don't practice exactly the same genres. But they all agree on the same message: it was time for more girls to emerge within styles that seemed, in the forms and in their protagonists, handled exclusively by men.

"A princess, not a slut"

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"Reggaeton can also be sexist, because sometimes they put women in humiliating situations"

In recent months, several trap concerts have been canceled after pressure from feminist groups. It is one of the great stigmas of the genre, often hard earned: in its visceral representation of sex, women are often objectified, if not humiliated. "Reggaeton can also be sexist, because sometimes they put women in humiliating situations," concedes Ms Nina. "But now there are more girls," she adds hopefully. How do they deal with this situation? For some, like Bad Gyal, it is a conflict, but also an opportunity to change things. "These styles are not ours. We have appropriated them from another culture," she assumes. "They have very good things, but also bad things. I try to prevent that from happening in my music, and to give a different message. I will never allow myself to be stepped on, or for a man to think he is more than me."

None of them openly define themselves as feminists, despite the fact that much of her message is. "Equality between men and women is what I want the most, and it pisses me off that it isn't," continues Bad Gyal, "but right now I don't like to say 'yes, I'm a feminist,' because who knows what people will understand with that". What they are clear about is the macho attitude they have encountered, and that is evident in the comments on their videos on YouTube, their main channel of dissemination. "When I started, there were people who said to me 'what are you doing coming out of the kitchen?' or 'now the aunts do trap, what are they about?' But now, as there are more girls, they tell you fewer things, "says Chanel. They are clear that, because they are women, many men consider them an easy target. Other times, the attacks are not based on practicing styles that some consider masculine, but on the sexual content of some lyrics or on the way they dress or show their bodies. "Every day I get comments that say why do I show my ass," says Ms Nina, whose song Chupa chupa contains the phrase "I'm a princess and not a slut." "It's much easier to criticize an aunt than an uncle," she continues. "A boy can say anything... and why not me?"

But, just as the word feminism has been biased by the environment to the point of not wanting to make it their own, they have also done the same with other terms. Nina tells how she made some stickers with the word "whore", common in many trap lyrics made by girls, stripped of all its negative meaning. "It's a word that I've heard so many times... Whenever I go down the street I see it in some graffiti. But, for me, it's not derogatory: whore is like an aunt who has the manners of a man. It's a word with a lot of power ", he assures. "The Zowie has a theme called Whore with that game, and it's brutal," explains Bad Gyal. "We can do whatever we want with words. If you call me a bitch, I'm above and I'll turn your word on you. I have the power, I decide." As has happened with nigger in American rap, they have stripped an insult of its power to proudly reuse it. "When I use the word 'slut,' I mean a girl, or a boy," Zowie clarifies. Chanel explains something similar: "If I say 'I have my whores behind me', I mean that I am the boss. For me, it simply means 'girls'". "It's a word that came out of the darkness to be fearlessly hanging around us," says Tomasa. Let it be clear: whores we are all.

Triumph is not silent

"Most of the artists who make trap were or are poor, and do not have access to opportunities. When we hesitate about money, it is to show the world that you can have it too"

If machismo has always been one of the most noted evils within genres such as trap or reggaeton, another common criticism points to its consumer drive. Brand names abound in some of their songs, and in the image of their performers it is common for them to flaunt luxury clothing, jewelry or, directly, wads of bills. "The fascination with money and luxury is a product of inequalities in society," explains Zowie. "Most of the artists who make trap were or are poor, and do not have access to opportunities. When we hesitate for money, it is to show the world that you can also have it, even if you are marginalized by the system." "It's a dilemma for me," confesses Bad Gyal.

"I'm super brand freak, I love expensive things. I can make a song and say that I want this and that, and that I'm going to get it myself, and there are people who can understand that it's a super-capitalist speech or superficial, but it's an important thing for me, to feel myself". Perhaps, then, the problem is not with the music itself, but with the society that has caused such deep gaps to exist. "Trap and reggaeton come from the street. You make music about what happens to you, which, in general, is not so pretty," summarizes Tomasa. "It's aspirational. To be able to get out of the reality you're in and have money to stop worrying about surviving. Brands, logos and gold are the trophy you get when you achieve it. It's not a silent victory; it's a victory that want to share and celebrate with the world.