Ivy Queen Talks ‘Battling to Find My Own Lane’ at Billboard Women in Music
Written by djfrosty on March 1, 2023
Billboard Women in Music honors executives, artists and power players who have worked against the odds to succeed in a male-dominated business (and any way you crunch the numbers, that’s just a fact). But few of the 2023 honorees have had a path like Ivy Queen. With tenacity and talent, the Puerto Rican singer not only made a name for herself in the predominantly male world of reggaetón in the ‘90s but established herself as one of the genre’s all-time icons.
So it’s only fitting that at the 2023 Billboard Women in Music event, Ivy Queen is honored with the Icon Award. After a surprise introduction from Bad Bunny – Billboard’s Top Artist of 2022 – at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles on Wednesday (March 1), Ivy Queen took the stage.
“When I fell in love with music, I found myself constantly battling to find my own lane, spot and identity between the guys,” she told the Los Angeles crowd. “Bars became my self-defense mechanism.”
The diva also urged the crowd “not to stay quiet when something hurts.”
“In a world that tell us women we’re always being measured by looks, by body type and sometimes by beauty — and that we are getting not equally paid for having ovaries — I call upon all the Latin and American industry women to not allow others to split us and divide us.”
Ivy Queen ended her speech with a meaningful, philosophical and extremely useful piece of advice. “Beauty is a mental attitude; with that said, please, ladies, do not go to bed with your makeup on.”