When I was six years old, a movie called "The Cheetah Girls" was released on Disney Channel. I can remember my mom getting me ready for bed in my favorite Paul Frank pajamas and getting to stay up an hour past my usual bedtime because it was a Friday. At the time, I didn't know I was about to watch a movie that was going to change my life. In fact, I didn't even realize the impact it made on me until several years later.

It wasn't until a few months ago when I was scrolling through Spotify, making an extensive list of "Throwback Thursday" songs when I came across a few Cheetah Girls songs I used to listen to and absolutely love. As a kid, I would make up dances and lip sync to my favorite songs of theirs, "Cinderella," "Strut," "Cheetah Sisters," and "Girl Power." It wasn't until now, at nineteen, that I realized these four women of color — props, Disney — created albums on top of albums of feminist anthems for young girls to listen to, sing to, and dance along to. The Cheetah Girls made me a feminist before I even knew what the concept of feminism was.

My absolute favorite Cheetah Girls song, "Cinderella," addresses the way girls are taught from a young age through fairytales that one day their "Prince Charming" (notice how we're always told we're going to find a handsome man) would come and save them. With a pop sounding tune and a catchy chorus that sings "I don't want to be like Cinderella / Waiting for somebody to come and set me free / I'd rather rescue myself," The Cheetah Girls were the first to tell me that I didn't need a man to be happy and that I could be successful on my own. Talk about a feminist anthem!

"Girl Power" had always been another favorite of mine, another pop tune with a recurring phrase: "girl power!" My best friend and I used to have a dance to this song that we would constantly perform in front of our parents complete with mediocre hip-hop moves and a lot of fist pumping and high fives. We were six years old at the time, jumping around and singing about girl power. I can even remember singing it around my brother, completely over the moon about the fact that I was a girl and felt as though I had a song dedicated to me — like, "Ha, where's your boy power song, Daniel? That's right, there isn't one!" It was a track by girls for girls and began teaching a young generation of women at as young as four years old that it was okay to be a strong, independent, woman (who don't need no man).

I guess what I'm trying to say is a big 'ole thank you to some incredible women of color who absolutely shaped who I am today. Thank you Adrienne, Raven, Sabrina, and Kiely for telling my six year old self that being a woman was cool and something to be proud of, that being a woman of color was never something I should shy away from, and that sending a message through music can be one of the strongest ways to send a message — even if it takes you a couple years for that message to finally hit you.