“I’d write a song down and then try to follow the format,” says Abner, who now performs under the name Prowess the Testament. “I remember going to show [my cousin] all these lyrics I wrote out — and he pulls out his book and there’s literally the same thing.”

At that point, there was no looking back.

Now an experienced emcee, Abner has a writerly style and a fascination with the ancient and divine. Her artfully constructed lyrics betray her lifelong experience as a writer — and her verses are eclectic, touching on cosmology, philosophy, Egyptology and folklore.

All these elements rise to the surface on Prowess the Testament’s new single, “Alpha Centauri.” In the song’s video, the Laurel, Maryland, rapper articulates her visions in a grimy setting — she posts up in an alleyway, standing before some of D.C.’s finest hip-hop artists: Enoch 7th Prophet, MC Logic, Ardamus and The Cornel West Theory’s Tim Hicks, who also produced the song.

Abner says “Alpha Centauri” is about breaking out of conventional thought. “Much of my point was to remove that compartmentalized thinking that separates art and science into separate vocabularies,” she says.

With its Kung Fu movie samples and breakbeats, the production on “Alpha Centauri” harks back to the golden age of Wu-Tang Clan. Abner’s delivery steadily grows in intensity before the beat cuts out, pausing for Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” The moment is layered with meaning.

“It is intended to represent a deafening silence in the song,” Abner says. “Beethoven allegedly composed [‘Für Elise’] while nearly deaf. Scholars have been hypothesizing for years over who ‘Elise’ is… I like to think that Beethoven’s muse was simply the stillness of silence.”

Abner began releasing music in 1999 under the name Naiea. But the initial experience was overwhelming and left her burnt out. She moved to Africa, where her passion for hip-hop followed her in an unexpected way.

“I remember waking up in Kenya to Jeru the Damaja,” Abner says. “I’m in the hills… 2,100 meters above sea level, and ‘One Day‘ is blasting out of the compound… I literally fell out of the bed laughing.”

Abner returned to the U.S. and began making music under the name Prowess the Testament, a name given to her by hip-hop elder statesman KRS-One. “Alpha Centauri” is her second single overall and the first from her new EP, Air​.​Human|Breath​.​Divine, officially out today.

In May, Abner drops another EP, called Right Where I Left It. She also hints at other surprises down the line, like an upcoming show with the Hip Hop Unforgettable Tour and a legendary boom-bap artist.

“I can’t give away any secrets just yet,” the lyricist says, “but I can promise it will be epic.”

Prowess the Testament’s new EP is available on Bandcamp.

Nearly 30 years later after the classic song dropped, D.C. now has its own take on “Self Destruction” — and it comes with a dose of feminism.

A group called Resurrecting Queenz released a new version of “Self Destruction” last month. The song concludes a bloody year in the nation’s capital, with homicides up 54 percent in 2015. But it also takes a stand against another pernicious force: sexism, particularly the kind that pits women artists against each other.

D.C. hip-hop artist Katrina Blunt, aka Kenilworth Katrina, began pondering an all-female “Self Destruction” last fall. After watching a number of music documentary shows — Unsung, Behind the Music — she realized that women were saying the same thing about the hip-hop industry.

“The biggest thing I’ve seen is women, particularly in rap, talk about that it wasn’t a lot of female unity,” says Blunt, 37.

Contemporary artists say the same thing about today’s culture. “Girl rappers are afraid to work together because we get fixed in these imaginary competitions,” British MC Lady Leshurr told the Guardian in 2013. “The industry just doesn’t know what to do with women.”

Blunt thought that an all-women version of “Self Destruction” could help blow that up while addressing violence at the same time. She began recruiting rappers on social media. Over several weeks, with help from fellow artists, she wound up with 18 women spitters from the D.C. region, later bringing in six more. She corralled everyone into a recording studio in Suitland, Maryland, and the chemistry just happened, she says.

“It was no egos. It was no miscommunication, no arguing,” Blunt says.

Later, the group shot a music video at various locations in D.C., including the Watha T. Daniel library in Shaw and Blunt’s stomping grounds in Kenilworth. In the finished product, MCs from Mana to Roe.B deliver their verses while the names of black Americans killed during police encounters, followed by 2015 homicide statistics, scroll by.

The project has gotten supportive feedback since it came out in December, Blunt says. But five years ago, she wouldn’t have pursued a project like “Self Destruction.” She felt unsure about her creative direction.

“I didn’t know my audience, I didn’t know my lane. I was just all over the place with my music,” she says. Then a higher power intervened, she says, and she found her purpose. “My music now has a message, and the message is to never give up.”

Meanwhile, “Self Destruction” has sparked new friendships among the 24 “queenz,” many of whom had never met before last fall. Now, “some of them go out to brunch together,” Blunt says.

That’s one way to work toward unity among female artists.

“There are people — women — who do want to collaborate and don’t mind working with each other,” Blunt says. “This is proof.”