James Brown said it best: “This is a man’s world.” A pitbull in a skirt, a bombshell in the boardroom, a scantily-clad video vixen – women have played lots of roles in rap over the years. There are both good and bad images of girl power in Hip-Hop, but if longtime industry vet Shanti Das has anything to do with it, young women who aspire to jump into this crazy, changeable world will be equipped to keep their pockets and their reps in check. Even in 2011, women find themselves trying to break through that invisible glass ceiling that says they can only go but so far. In the music industry, and Hip-Hop in particular, women are few and far among the top leaders as artists and industry leaders. Das, with her new book and priceless years of wisdom gained from boosting the careers of legends like TLC, Outkast, and Goodie Mob, is set to help others bust through that same ceiling – the same one that didn’t hold her back. AllHipHop.com checked in with Das to learn more about her “ladies first” motivational message and the “Queen” who helped inspire her: AllHipHop.com: Hi, how are you, Shanti? Shanti: Good! How are you? AllHipHop.com: The first thing, Shanti, as I look through the book, it is clear that you’ve been a mover and a shaker in the industry for some time, but for our audience that isn’t familiar with you, can you tell them why your name is so well known in the music industry? Shanti: Sure. I am a 20-year music industry veteran. I got my start back in 1991 with Capitol Records while I was still in college at Syracuse University. I had the good fortune of working with a lot of really great artists over the years that I mention in the book, i.e. Outkast, Goodie Mob, Busta Rhymes, Akon, Run DMC, and well into the R&B arena, such as TLC, Toni Braxton, Erykah Badu, Prince, and so on. AllHipHop.com: Okay, so a lot of those people you named have, you know, like 20+ year careers. Would you say that has anything to do with their affiliation with you over the years? Shanti: I would like to think so. I’m not really one for tooting my own horn. But I have been told, you know, by the artists themselves and many others in the industry, that I’ve definitely made a contribution to, I think, the longevity of a lot of these artists in the industry today. AllHipHop.com: Okay, cool, so the book is geared towards women. It’s called The Hip-Hop Professional: A Woman’s Guide to Climbing the Ladder of Success in the Entertainment Business. So, why was it important for you to gear this specifically for women? Shanti: It was important for me to gear the book to Hip-Hop professionals, towards women, because I feel like women sometimes don’t support each other enough – although I’ve seen a lot more of it over the last few years with organizations such as W.E.E.N., the Boss Network, N.A.B.F.E.M.E., and Diva Lounge. I am very happy that a lot of women are supporting one another, but when I was coming up there weren’t a lot of female organizations out there to help mentor other young women on the come up. I also saw a lot of women, and I even had experiences, you know where women were hating on one another and just really not try to help each other move forward and succeed in the business. AllHipHop.com: Okay, well, as I was looking through it, it seems geared towards younger women, like maybe college age, women who are starting their careers. So was that your goal to target it towards, sort of, that up and coming young woman? Shanti: It was. As you mentioned, my primary demographic is college students. I do a lot of speaking and lectures at colleges. I feel like it is so tough to get into the music industry as it now, because there are so fewer labels, but I find that there are still so many young women that want to work in the music business and in the entertainment industry. So, I felt like it’s my guide to hopefully offer a lot of insight into what goes on in the music business, and how to get your foot in the door. AllHipHop.com: Right, okay. Well, you call it a guide but to me, it read more like a personal story, or like an autobiography of your time. Shanti: Well, yeah, like my memoir. AllHipHop.com: Right, like a memoir, exactly. So, can you tell me, like what were some of the best of times and some of the worst of times for you as a woman in the Hip-Hop industry? Shanti: I think some of the best of times, well one, being able to see your get work manifested to greatness. I spent a lot of hours working on the Outkast project and the Goodie Mob project. With Outkast being rappers from the South, you know, back in the day it was all about East Coast and West Coast. Whether it was Biggie or Pac or even with all the groups like Naughty by Nature and Ice Cube, and all those guys breaking on those coasts. But you know, as we used to call it, the South Coast if you will, you know, it wasn’t as easy for us breaking into the mainstream arena. So, I think one of the great highlights in my career was back in 1995 when Outkast won “Best New Artist” at the Source Awards. It was really like, wow, we are finally breaking barriers and, you know, accomplishing something here. I know how hard the group worked, as well as I did and the label, to really put those guys out there and put them on the map. So, that was, you know, a really good time for me. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyPKvpfyKWU&w=420&h=315] Some of the worst times were me being […]