About Simones Over Capones
The birth...
Simones Over Capones was founded by Tiffany Burriss in June 2020, and officially launched a few months later in October. Combined with 14 years of experience as a hip hop music journalist/blogger, as well as having spent couple of years celebrating womxn in a unique "Women In Hip Hop" portrait illustration series on her Instagram, she decided to create a platform to predominantly feature, celebrate, and uplift womxn's voices in music, specifically hip hop.
The inspiration...
The website's name was inspired by Lauryn Hill's notable line in "Ready or Not," where she raps: "So while you're imitating Al Capone, I'll be Nina Simone defecating on your microphone." With the name Simones Over Capones, Tiffany wanted to create awareness regarding three things: it's owned + operated by a woman, its main purpose will be to feature womxn, and everything will be done with elegance and celebration (SOC is not a place for gossip, harsh criticism, or bashing).
The mission...
The main mission of Simones Over Capones is to showcase talented womxn within hip hop, as well as other genres of music, art, and the written word, by way of feature posts, insightful interviews, thorough reviews, art collaborations, and other exclusivities. In doing so, SOC hopes to help dismantle the bullshit idea that hip hop, or anything, is just a "boy's club," by creating a space where their voices are heard and celebrated, too.
Although we have come a long way in hip hop, the fight for womxn to be taken seriously, or to be heard and/or included in conversation, is still an on-going battle. There are still conversations taking place where people make excuses saying that there "aren't enough womxn" to be included in something; people still give back-handed compliments about how someone's "dope for a womxn"; people still put "female" before the profession... and the list goes on. Womxn shouldn't be an afterthought where they're treated as a plus 1 at a table of 20 (whether that's on a festival flyer, a label roster, top/best lists, etc), where it seems that their inclusion is done more for appearances than talent or aptitude. Womxn shouldn't just be given one-time special segment on a podcast or blog, where they're not shown just as much appreciation as their male counterparts on a regular basis. Womxn deserve better. They deserve your respect, celebration, and attention just as much as anyone else, because there are a whole hell of a lot of us out there that are talented and making noise.
While SOC operates from a "womxn first" standpoint, this is a place that welcomes all gender identities. SOC hopes to not only put our readers onto dope musicians and artists that they might not have heard of before, but to also become a place where the voices, creativity, and work of womxn can be easily found throughout its pages.
About Tiffany Burriss
Tiffany Burriss is a freelance artist & music journalist. While her love for hip hop began in the mid-90's, her passion for writing about music began in 2008, when she became co-owner & head music journalist at CrayonBeats, writing under the name Tiffology. Back in those days, it was one of the first woman-owned, independent music blogs that largely covered hip hop, & was solely run by two women. There, she helped build a respectable reputation among unsigned, independent, & major label artists, where she wrote about the music & art she enjoyed throughout thousands of exclusive features, reviews, interviews, & unique creative projects.
Aside from the blog, which ran for 8 years, CrayonBeats also self-published their own magazine, available in digital & print formats, & they also released conceptual compilation albums. While Tiffany's creative mind & writing hands were involved in all 9 issues of CrayonBeats Magazine (read here), as well as all 10 compilation albums (listen here), she did do a few things entirely on her own (that she's proud of): CrayonBeats Magazine issue 7, & The Monsters Are Due on CrayonBeats 3-part music series (vol. 1, vol. 2, & vol. 3); the latter of which combined her love of hip hop with stories from The Twilight Zone & Goosebumps.
Her 12 years of being one-half of everything at CrayonBeats was an incredible, life-changing journey, where not only did her passion for music thrive, but she also found her voice in hip hop music journalism. After leaving CrayonBeats in May 2020, she decided to branch out on her own and start Simones Over Capones.
