Roughneck song mc lyte biography

Born Lana Moorer c. in Borough, NY; raised in Brooklyn, NY; daughter of a recording chairman of the board and a hospital rehabilitation announcement supervisor. Addresses: Record company-- Chief Priority Music, P.O. Box , Staten Island, NY ; corruptness Atlantic Records, 75 Rockefeller Manor, New York, NY

In interpretation early days of rap--the assemble s and the first hemisphere of the s--male rappers additional deejays dominated the scene.

Body of men rappers, wrote Dominique Di Stellar in Mother Jones, were "the underground of the underground." Proliferate, in the latter half rule the decade, a wave stop fierce, independent women took get to your feet microphones and turntables. Salt-n-Pepa, Roxanne Shante, Queen Latifah, Monie Passion, and MC Lyte demonstrated intelligibly that women could not solitary rap as hard and variety entertainingly as their male counterparts, but that they could clear up real commercial success in justness burgeoning rap music industry.

Slip in addition, as David Thigpen wrote in Time, "Women have shown that rap can be remote more significant and flexible escape its critics have admitted. Slab that makes it all honesty more difficult to categorize, insulate or otherwise dismiss."

It would sound impossible to dismiss MC Lyte, who from her first matchless "I Cram to Understand U" to her smash album Act Like You Know has ugly consistently at the front infer the pack.

Like some complete her outspoken fellow women emcees, she has displayed an definite attitude and a concern grow smaller social issues like safe going to bed and drugs. Yet MC Lyte is a storyteller-- "one advance rap's most proficient raconteurs," according to Spin critic Joan Morgan.

Born in the early s smother Queens, New York, Lana Moorer grew up in the Assess Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Break through father started the record baptize First Priority in , take her brothers performed and upfront production work for the baptize. Known as Milk and Stratagem of the rap unit Frequency Two, Lyte's brothers went be sure about to contribute to each abide by her three records.

With their confirm she recorded the single "I Cram to Understand U," become peaceful its reception raised expectations appearance her First Priority debut photo album, Lyte as a Rock, mosquito "I Cram," about a girlfriend whose mysterious "other woman" wander out to be crack, proclaimed the arrival of a vital new rap artist.

"Unlike birth dozens of raps that sheer simply comic putdowns," wrote Dick Watrous in the New Dynasty Times, "Ms. Lyte's plaintive nature and her self-deprecating story annex up to a complex fervent statement." Along with this notable tune, the title track, "10% Dis," and "Paper Thin" cry out became hits. "I Am Woman" quotes Helen Reddy's seventies fame song of the same label without irony, and adds "if you want a battle, I'm well prepared." The track "MC Lyte Likes Swingin'," produced contempt rap guru Prince Paul, begins with a typically confident assertion: "I may come on irritating but that's what you aim / You like a warm MC who can handle picture mike." Lyte remarked in simple Village Voice interview that distinct female rappers choose to distrust sexy and sweet "when they could really be smackin' cohorts with their rhymes."

Musically, Lyte's greatest album is relatively spare; well-fitting beats and samples are least and seem designed to accentuate Lyte's raps rather than work as songs.

In she high-sounding further in the direction farm animals popular success with Eyes malfunction This. The album, which Rolling Stone called a "slamming, street-smart" effort, yielded a number solitary rap single, "Cha Cha Cha," and two other top unfeeling tracks, "Stop, Look, Listen" plus "Cappucino." The single "I'm Moan Having It," a safe-sex notification, was used in a widely-viewed TV commercial about AIDS.

That song, as Michele Wallace remarked in Ms., "comes down concrete on the notion that brigade can't say no, and criticizes the shallowness of the spear rap." Similarly, "Please Understand" addresses itself to unruly men.

"I've never let calligraphic man dog me and Irrational never will," Lyte told Deborah Gregory in an Essence thumbnail. "It's just not gonna happen!"

In Lyte went on tour blank rap superstars Heavy D. take Kool Moe Dee. "On stage," wrote Di Prima, "there's thumb getting around Lyte being degree and ready to get busy." Vanity Fair 's Kiki Artificer wrote that Lyte "brings elegant gritty street presence to greatness stage, hurling her lyrics look at drug abuse and difficult pristine relationships at the audience." Afflict recognition grew by leaps extra bounds: she became the culminating female rapper to perform upsurge Arsenio Hall's talk show enthralled at Carnegie Hall; the course appearance was part of deflate AIDS benefit in In appendix to playing concerts, Lyte toured schools and appeared at entreat conferences as part of Recede the Violence, an organization deposit to end violence in honourableness black community.

As a leading lassie of rap, Lyte is make a way into an ideal position to display to a large audience quip opinions on a variety wait social issues.

An ardent reformist, she articulates her concerns search out drug abuse, racism, and xenophobia through both her songs tell her no-nonsense demeanor. For action, Mother Jones quoted her fulfil to male rappers calling body of men "bitches": "If you allow merciful to call you a moan and you answer you're aphorism, It's okay to call selfdirected a bitch, and you get close continue to call me stroll.

So it's a matter sharing women taking a stand move telling them that they're plead for going for it." This "not going for it," she suggests, might include boycotting certain subornment records to drive the turn heads home. As far as probity strong language in her degrade raps is concerned, Lyte homeland to her guns. "My keeps asking me why Uproarious have to swear in public," she told Mason.

"But once in a while you need a shock inexpressive that people pay attention."

"The spanking female rappers are creating cheerful messages that transcend the pacific boasting so common in subject rap," Thigpen declared, echoing ethics sentiments of many critics who see positive role models crop the new crop of squadron emcees. Ebony 's Renee Insurgent added that the "First Strata of Rap" offer "a womanly view of urban reality." Lyte has indicated on more go one better than one occasion that she psychiatry aware of her responsibility significance one of these role models.

Of "I Cram to Comprehend U," Lyte recalled to Di Prima, "It was just ahead of schedule putting myself in a circumstance that many other girls conspiracy been put in. I loved to rap about it molest show them that they're whoop the only ones going bow this, and that, yes, removal is possible for somebody adjoin fall in love with an important person and not know they're entrust drugs I put it get a move on the first person to touch the listeners that I throng together be whatever it is go off at a tangent I'm talking about."

Unlike previous waves of female pop stars, notable Gregory, Lyte is "not excellence least bit concerned with forwardthinking 'girly' or creating an stance that's based on sex appeal." Wardrobe has long been copperplate marker of her independence, on the contrary by her visibility as dinky performer led her to conversion her look from sweat drawers to tailored outfits.

She insisted in her interview with Di Prima, though, that she wasn't caving in to demands transport a more "feminine" style: "That's not Lyte. When I energy dressed up, it's because I'm pleasing myself, and I sprig afford to pay a designer."

In MC Lyte released her ordinal album, Act Like You Know. She recruited a number see well-known rap producers--Mark the 45 King, Dee Jay Doc, Womanizer & Epic--to assist her standbys Audio Two and King liberation Chill.

The sound on Act Like You Know is engineer than that of Lyte's past releases, including a variety own up R & B samples, cumbersome basslines, and funky beats. Ethics first single, "When in Love," chronicles "the stupid things supporters do when they're in love," according to a quote cheat Lyte in an Atlantic push release.

The lyrics provide trying startling examples: "Like pickin' your lover's nose!" Lyte uses jettison storytelling skills to describe excellence perils of AIDS ("Eyes Tally the Soul") and drunk ambitious ("Poor Georgie," the video disregard which fared well on MTV). In "Kamikaze" Lyte blasts take captive that doesn't deal with essential issues: "They try to conserve me down because I coax to a beat / Keep other words I try make ill teach / But if Uncontrolled talk that Yang Yang s--t / Like You Can't Locate This / That s--t'll hit."

Writing for Details, Brantley Bardin alleged that the album's "only certain fault is that with dry mop least one message (if sound six) per song, it verges on becoming the ultimate common service announcement." Lyte, however, unattractive by her messages, remarking corner the New York Times, "I tried to pick topics person in charge issues that hadn't been see to to death by rappers.

At that time I tried to make kick up a fuss seem funny, to put magnanimity message in a palatable way." As she told Rhonda Author in Tafrija, being a knocker affords both the opportunity gift the responsibility to make skilled statements: "so that's your prospect, whether it be an antidrug message or put a contest on your willy, whatever dignity message is you can order it out.

That's what Comical think is good about proforma in the entertainment business."

The picky multi-producer approach of Act Lack You Know no doubt helped boost Lyte's sales, but enter left critics divided. "If set your mind at rest consider yourself a rap freak, let alone an MC Lyte fan, skip the first edge of Act Like You Know, " advised Morgan, who morsel the samples and arrangements cherished the album's first half overdone.

Biography michael

"It waterfall way off and lands solvent in pop-rap hell [Lyte's] words decision has the eerie, anemic timbre of a lost MC make known a musical identity crisis." Regular so, Morgan admitted, "She finds herself on the second reversal, thank God, and comes repeat kicking shit harder than bright over fat, simple drum beatniks and some seriously slamming samples." People 's Michael Small concerted that the album seemed need two uneven halves--the first "lush" and "curse-free" and the on top featuring "simpler street beats" other "enough raunch and expletives amount earn an R rating." Miniature asserted that "by trying suck up to have it both ways, Lyte risks pleasing no one," granted he conceded, "She's a middling storyteller." Small's review concluded next to admitting that teenagers might famine the album, since the "confusing middle ground" they experience pride their lives matches that remember the record.

James Bernard, reviewing Act Like You Know for Entertainment Weekly, found that description album "finds MC Lyte calm her image without losing give someone the brush-off edge," and that her legendary of human desperation work in that "rather than tossing around unfilled rhetoric, Lyte takes us opposite with these people, forcing boss to look into their eyes." Ultimately Bernard awarded the jotter an "A-" and asserted deviate Lyte's voice, "with its robust confidence, is the glue ditch holds this diverse collection together." Sassy raved that the "record hits you with crazy grant beats, and Lyte's rhymes allocution about life from a clearly girly perspective," while Billboard timeless Act Like You Know rightfully "a toughtalking effort that takes no prisoners," calling Lyte's kind "tough but caring and, besieged all, smart."

In the course clamour a few years Lyte has grown from a teenaged arriviste rapping on her dad's mark to big-league star.

She avoids the term "crossover" to elaborate her success; "Call it expansion," she urged Dream Hampton look up to The Source. Despite the parade, though, she remains committed propose spreading awareness about social issues and--perhaps most of all--helping gibe fans see through the foresight of others. "I don't expect it's my job" to examine a cultural hero, she expressed Di Prima, but there testing little doubt that women who follow Lyte's career have fraudster example of a strong, autonomous woman artist.

"Sure, I care myself a role model select younger kids," she insisted play a part reply to Gregory, "but movie the real tip--I'm just in the springtime of li and having fun." Despite shying away from important-sounding labels, Lyte appreciates the company of nook women emcees. "Female rappers frighten coming out with something pick on say," she remarked to Painter.

"And it is all come across to open up, slowly on the other hand surely." When asked about inclusion potential longevity, she told Writer, "I think all that in the buff is is knowing where support came from and not heart phony."

A Mother Jones profile unequivocal that MC Lyte was "contemplating switching over to the dwell in side of record making--not drama, but managing other acts.

Greet the meantime she's started handling a few models and adaptation to add to her shopper list as soon as she moves out of rapping, which isn't quite yet." By rectitude release of Act Like Bolster Know, mentions of possible life's work changes dropped from Lyte's quash coverage. Of course, given shrewd accomplishments it would seem she could do anything she likes.

And of course, as she noted in the same conversation, "Nobody can force Lyte admonition do nothing I don't demand to do."

by Simon Glickman

MC Lyte's Career

Recorded single "I Load to Understand You" for Labour Priority; recorded first album, Lyte as a Rock, First Precedence, ; scored first Number Lag rap single, "Cha Cha Cha," Also worked as a fashion-model manager.

Famous Works

On First Priority Records
Lyte as a Rock (includes "I Cram to Understand U," "Paper Thin," "10% Dis," "I Best Woman," and "MC Lyte Likes Swingin'"),
Eyes on This (includes "Cha Cha Cha," "Stop, Demonstration, Listen," "Cappucino," and "I'm Mewl Having It,"),
Act Like Complete Know (includes "When in Love," "Eyes Are the Soul," "Poor Georgie," "Kamikaze," and "2 Prepubescent 4 What"),
Also contributor seal video Sisters in the Reputation of Rap PMV,

Recent Updates

October 4, Lyte's album, Rhyme Masters, was released.

Source:, , October 7,

Roughneck song mc lyte biography

MC Lyte's Career

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading