The popularization of the term "ride-or-die chick" did not enter mainstream hip-hop until The Lox released a duet with Eve, "Ryde or Die, Bitch," on the 2000 album We Are the Streets.
For example, Gabrielle Union was described as a ride-or-die chick for her public and vehement defense of her husband Dwyane Wade after his talent was criticized by basketball player/analyst Charles Barkley.
These articles argue women need specific boundaries in their romantic relationships and dismiss the idea of limitless loyalty as either unrealistic myth or facilitating abuse and disrespect.
The website https://www.singleblackmale.org, which claims to represent the "urban male perspective", tells women specific ways they can achieve ride-or-die status that vary from "being down for the cause" to "either watch sports...or get out and leave (your man) alone.
"[17] Black feminist scholar Treva Lindsey claims the ride-or-die chick is a challenge to a dominant narrative in hip hop that privileges homosocial male relationships and undermines heterosexual romantic bonds between men and women.
Her recognition that committing to this relationship will require her to "ride or die" is a statement about the difficulty her partner will likely face as a black man living an illicit lifestyle.
"[19] Despite these positive readings and the fact that ride-or-die chicks are often the subject of male praise or female self-identification in hip hop, they have also been critiqued as a negative and damaging ideal imposed on Black women.
[20] In an interview, hip hop activist Toni Blackman noted that it is not the sexuality of these scripts she is troubled by, but that "woman's choices are only limited to A, B and C. When a guy gets to choose between ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP.
"[24] In this critique the problem with the ride-or-die chick is not its specific meaning but its place as one of several stereotypes, or scripts, that supposedly represent the entirety of black female behavior.