Chapter 5 concentrates on the role of race and gender in the pursuit of recognition. Details about the role and influence of women in the early years of hip hop have mostly been ignored in previous works, but this chapter shows that women were significant to the internal logic of the scene. Exploring the rise and fall of The Mercedes Ladies, the first all-female DJing and MCing crew, we see that the masculine orientation of the scene limited how much symbolic capital could be accrued because the most important social networks in the scene (e.g., those of party promoters, club owners, and security crews) were dominated by males. This chapter also explores the rise of Charlie Chase, a popular Puerto Rican DJ, to demonstrate how race mattered in the pursuit of symbolic capital. Even though all young people in the South Bronx neighborhoods, including non-blacks, were invited to the parties, not all could, without opposition, become famous performers. This was because the most desirable role in the scene, being a performer, was reserved for blacks, while non-blacks who attempted to cross this boundary faced some resistance.