In the two years since the last B-Girl Be bash was held, the Twin Cities hip-hop scene has been relatively flush with female performers. Maria Isa, Dessa of Doomtree, Desdamona and Black Blondie are some of the most common names you see on fliers and club calendars around town.

The success of these women, then, raises a question for B-Girl Be organizers: Is a festival designed to promote and inspire female hip-hop talent still necessary in our town?

Proving its relevance could indeed be a challenge for this year's B-Girl Be Block Party, which returns from its hiatus Saturday at Intermedia Arts in Uptown Minneapolis. But just as it overcame the financial woes that helped sideline it and many other community-oriented events last year, the fourth installment of the all-female, all-things-hip-hop festival should be able to pass that test. Here are reasons to believe it will reiterate (and maybe even reinvent) its importance:

1. Now endorsed by the National Endowment for the Arts. It's true, B-Girl Be earned a coveted NEA grant this year that helped bring it back from the brink, an achievement that no doubt came from the event's attentiveness to visual arts, dancing, poetry and filmmaking in addition to music.

"It wasn't the absolute solution, but it certainly helped make it possible," B-Girl Be co-organizer Theresa Sweetland said of the grant -- a first for Intermedia Arts, by the way.

2. A year off did it good. Among the ideas brainstormed in the interim, the big one was to condense the festival into a one-day event. Said Sweetland, "We think it'll really focus the energy more."

Other changes include the addition of workshops on dancing and battle-rapping for young women, and there will be a female-centric late-night dance party inside the center.

3. God loves beauty, too (and so do guys). Atmosphere's 2002 song "God Loves Ugly" is a local classic, but it doesn't need to be a local mantra. Twin Cities hip-hop fans who are sick and tired of looking at the sea of poorly coiffed, baggy-T-shirt-wearing male rappers around town should consider this party a major alternative. Looking sexy is not what the artists or the event is about, but they have it going on nonetheless. And yes, for the record, guys are more than welcome to attend.

4. Ladies still aren't first. Queen Latifah's "Ladies First" should simply be an old-school guilty pleasure, but it's still a pertinent battle cry. Female hip-hop performers may get respect in local clubs, but that's about it. When was the last time you saw a female performer open for a touring rapper? For that matter, you almost never see female hip-hop stars come here on tour, something that B-Girl Be remedied this year by booking Toronto-reared rapper Eternia and New York-based Nicaraguan turntablist DJ Chela. Even the progressive Rhymesayers crew neglected to book a female performer besides Dessa at its Soundset '09 festival.

"You still almost never see a female performer at any of the major hip-hop events, which is as true in DJ-ing and the other elements of hip-hop, too," Sweetland said. "There's still a need to show solidarity and demand more respect."

Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658