The Hip-Hop Queens Oracle Deck

A stunningly illustrated oracle deck featuring 52 of hip-hop’s most influential queens (from Lauryn Hill to Megan Thee Stallion) serving as compass points for spiritual growth and portals to guidance and meditation—from the author of God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop

Women have been the backbone of hip-hop since its earliest inception. Along with perseverance and creativity, they possess a spiritual and metaphysical presence. These female creators have a profound potency that makes them the perfect symbols for an oracle deck to help you address a question or set your intention for the day.
 
The fifty-two artists included—from MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa, Queen Latifah, and Lil’ Kim to Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Cardi B, and Nicki Minaj—are hip-hop’s oracles, now immortalized from tape deck to card deck. Veteran music journalist and certified oracle reader Kathy Iandoli matched each queen with an appropriate symbol, based on her decades of experience interviewing (and befriending) iconic artists, past and present. Rendered in the bold, colorful, pop art–style portraiture of artist Monica Ahanonu on sturdy, oversized cards with rounded corners, these DJs, MCs, and singers will guide you the same way they’ve blazed trails from the underground to the mainstream since day one.Kathy Iandoli is a critically acclaimed journalist and the author of God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop and Baby Girl: Better Known as Aaliyah. Kathy has coauthored The Queen Bee by Lil’ Kim and Commissary Kitchen by Albert “Prodigy” Johnson. She has written for Vibe, The Source, XXL, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, Maxim, The Guardian, and Vice and held editorial positions at AllHipHop, HipHopDX, and BET online. Iandoli is an alumna-in-residence of music business at New York University and has appeared on television, radio, and panels discussing hip-hop and gender.

Monica Ahanonu is a freelance illustrator working and living in Los Angeles. After graduating from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Monica started her career at DreamWorks Animation. She has worked with Netflix, Google, Instagram, The New York Times, Samsung, Time, InStyle, Adidas, Sprite, Salvatore Ferragamo, Sephora, Red Table Talk, and Vanity Fair and been featured online in Vogue, BuzzFeed, New York, Women’s Wear Daily, Architectural Digest, Bustle, Afropunk, and Design Milk. Her work has also been showcased at the Art Basel festival.You could have chosen to throw any oracle cards in the world, but you’re here with these. And what a special deck this is. Why, you ask? Because Hip-Hop Queens reign supreme (over nearly everyone).

Women have been the backbone of hip-hop since its earliest inception. They have weathered storms, reinvented the wheel, found love (and heartache), birthed a new generation of children and artists. Beneath all their perseverance and creativity lies a spiritual and metaphysical presence. Call it what you want—lightning in a bottle, Black girl magic—but these female creators have a potency that transcends the lyrics on a page or spins of a record on a turntable. Their emotion, insight, foresight, hindsight, and of course strength and resilience make them the perfect symbols for an oracle deck.

The 52 artists you’ll see here are hip-hop’s oracles, now immortalized from tape deck to card deck. We hope they guide you the way they’ve blazed trails from the underground to the mainstream since day one.