There’s nothing subtle about the male species - at all. Anything that catches our attention, we feel the need to broadcast to any and everyone in vicinity. Take this trio of teenagers at a local McDonald’s for instance. While two of them shout their conversation across the restaurant, the other is having a loud, vulgar discussion on his cell, much to the chagrin of a mother eating with her daughter.

“Damn! Look at that,” exclaims the one on the cell phone, as he peers out the window. The other springs to attention to see three females emerge from a white SUV.

“They must be part of the Color Changin’ Click,” he jokes, making fun of the ladies’ multi-colored hair.

Those laughs soon turn into dumb looks as 22-year-old Mist T(the one with the purple and blue hair), 20-year-old Neki Dra (the one with the pink and blue hair) and 21-year-old Keia (the one with the red and orange hair) nonchalantly walk past the two scrubs-in-training as one of them tries his best to call either one of them over.

Judging by how they walked past the two adolescents, these ladies aren’t looking for any male verification. And judging by their eccentric hairstyles, they’re more than willing to stand out from the rest.

These ladies definitely know how to draw a crowd, whether it be the million plus hits on their MySpace page or the small group of curious onlookers that have just assembled inside the McDonald’s. Perhaps their eccentric hairstyles are acknowledgement of the 6th law of The 48 Laws of Power: Court attention at all cost. But getting the attention at home was another story.

With the road to the industry barely being built in their native Shreveport, Mis T, who originally started out a solo R&B, migrated to the musical hotbed that is Atlanta for “fresh start”.. Sisters Keia and Neki Dra soon followed. With Keia originally being more of a background person and Neki Dra doing her thing, the three ladies on a whim collaborated one song, and the rest, as they say, is history. But before the club-heavy single “Jiggalatin’” and other up-tempo tracks, things weren’t so fun and free with the ladies’ product.

“Actually, we used to do a lot hardcore Rap,” attests Mis T. “I mean, we was some gangsta girls. Put it like that.” But for whatever reason, topics such as fruit-flavored Kush soon gave way to more children-friendly lyrics. While most rappers shun the Role Model tag and remind parents that they are not here to raise their children, Th3sum has openly embraced the roles and use it as their calling card. “Everybody knows that when you come into the game, kids are watching you. For some reason, kids cling to us. So with the kids being [a major part] of our audience, we have to do what they can listen to.”

Neki Dra adds, “You don’t have to express yourself [with profanity], feel me? We’re try’na show ‘em you caexpress yourself in a different way and still get your point across.” While the enthused youngsters may have came in droves, it appears that the hardest crowd for the the ladies to win over is the one in their own gender group.

“You can get a crowd of girls where you step out fly, and if they see you’re doing something and they’re not, they’re going to hate regardless,” Neki states, with a hint of disappointment in her voice. “They ain’t gon’ show no love. They won’t even reach out when you hand ‘em a CD; they’ll take their arm back.”

Keia concurs with her sister’s statement, telling how she had one encounter that was straight of that You Got Served flick: “We try’na do it for the ladies. We’re try’na open doors for the ladies. It’s been times we went to the club - we’re just trying to be seen, pass out CD’s - girls come out behind us, they bust out a dance move! I’m like, Man, we’re not try’na compete with y’all. We’re just here chillin’. Here go a CD. What’s up?”

Whether you chalk it up to a case of them no longer being in demand, constant industry drama, or some kind of Biblical plague, one fact remains: The ladies of Rap are not as visible as they once were - if at all. Remember that 1997 cut “Ladies Night”(for the soundtrack to Touchstone Picture’s Nothing To Lose that starred Martin Lawrence) featuring Angie Martinez, Missy Elliot, Left Eye, Lil’ Kim, Da Brat, and Missy Elliot, with the accompanying video featuring an assortment of women who basked in the limelight? Today’s producer would be hard-pressed to create another diva posse-cut like that, given the short list of Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliot and.....Damn.....Well, who else is there?

“I think it’s real sad that ladies won’t step up, or they can’t step up. I mean, I don’t know which is it,” laments Mis. T. “But I feel the ladies don’t even have a place in the industry anymore...You’re not going to hear any female artists, unless Missy [Elliot] is out.”

And it seems that the few females who do manage to squeeze through the narrow crack in the door do so only when a man is there to co-sign them. But for these three ladies, it seems that they’re taking the do-it-yourself approach to things, whether it’s songwriting, beatmaking, or business deals. Nope. There’s no coattail riding for this bunch.“Naw, we don’t do that. Everything is always gon’ be Th3sum. Th3sum take care of everything. We do our own everything. So it’s nothing that anybody can ever be able to say the they’re ghostwriting for us. We always do everything [on] our own,” Mis. T state proudly.

Not every female in the game is blessed to be so defiant, though. More and more females are coming out of the woodworks with books based on their sexual dealings in the industry, and it’s making things harder for those who are actually grinding legitimately. And with opportunity knocking less and less for females, you can probably expect more titles to be stocked. But Keia, being the business-minded woman that she is, takes boss status when it comes to the men. She summarizes her crew’s demand for respect with one statement: “You wanna get signed? Call Ju C Entertainment. We ain’t try’na sleep with you.”