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Hip Hop.
It's how we know what bottles to pop and what luxury items we can't afford.
And we've been living in a bolden.
Era of female rappers with legends like Missy Elliott wil Kim and Lauren Hill, not to mention Megan the Stallion and Cardi b dancing with a certain African who misplaced my ticket to the Grammys. But did you know that female rappers have been viewed in every era, every era, every era that didn't work.
It's true.
Rap's history is full of women who have largely been forgotten, like Sylvia Robinson, the woman who helped create hip hop. Sylvia was a singer, record producer, label executive, and the first person to rock the Pharrell hat. She took rap from little known basement parties in the Bronx to worldwide commercial success in nineteen seventy nine by conceiving and producing raps first hit record, Rappers Delight. Not only was it the first rap single to conquer the charts, it also
sold over a million copies that's right. It went platinum, and back then we didn't even know what that was. They had to whip out a periodic table. And women were all over hip hop's early era. Like mc Shahrocks aka Sharon Green, she got her start in the South Bronx rapping at parties, which was tough, not just because no one had heard a woman rapping before, but also because the dude at the party was an acoustic guitar.
Is gonna be pixed?
We hate that guy.
In nineteen seventy nine, mc shahrocks group The Funky four plus one became the first rap group to sign with the record label, making her the first female rapper to record a song. Not only that, their performance on Saturday Night was also the first ever national TV appearance by any rappers. And rapping in a group is great for a female MC because when the man repeats what you just said but slightly louder, he's not being sexist.
He's being a good hype man.
Be a good man.
See, women weren't just part of rap births. They also invented the rap beaf.
The rap beat.
Okay, that's enough.
The first ever official rap beef was known as the Rock Sand Wars, which centered around Lolita Chante Good. She got her start battling traveling mcs at just fourteen years old, like a cross between eight Mile Indoor of the Explorer. The beef started in nineteen eighty four when the group UTFO released a song called Roxanne ro Sand about a
woman who had spurned their romantic advances. While Shonte was walking to the laundromat, her neighbor and record producer Marley Marl asked her to rhyme over a beat, so she recorded a track in his living room called Roxanne and Revenge, where she roasted every member of UTFO. The track was a monster hit, selling two hundred and fifty thousand copies in New York City alone.
UTFO was so.
Stung from getting dissed by a teenage girl they decided to fire back at Seantege with an answer track called The Real Rock Sand What ch'all understand? You're supposed to be tough, but a kid dismantled you, and she did it in between errands. Her to do list was groceries, laundry, destroy a group of grown men, and lock the dolls. From there, the so called Rock sande Wars truly ignited because other artists joined in. When it was all done,
some eighty seven Roxanne tracks had been released. It was like a rap Gettysbird, but instead of the battlefield being covered in blood, it was covered in grown men's feelings. M and we couldn't talk about women in hip hop were now talking about how they influenced the social consciousness and rap. Take mc Life, one of the earliest known
conscious rappers. Her first song at the age of sixteen, was about the prevalence of drugs in her neighborhood and how that ruined her love life, and I could relate. At sixteen, my love life was ruined by Brandon lying about what type of bike he was picking me up on. I thought he had a Harley, turns out he had a Hoofy. And that brings us to our final female pillar and hip hop pioneer, Queen Latifa. I don't know if it's appropriate.
I'd just like to do it to song.
She's Kadizia from Living Single to others, she's Mama Morton in Chicago, but she's, without a doubt, one of the most unforgettable hip hop artists in rap history. But remember, hip hop is a lot like your Uncle Fun, a little dangerous and incredibly misogynistic. But Queen Latifa burst onto the rap scene with the pro woman message. Her song Ladies Furst showed us not only her lyrical prowess, but
also uplifted women and name checked other female mcs. She was shouting out more women than Mambo number five than in nineteen ninety three. Her song called You and I t Y called out men in hip hop for referring to women as bitches and hoes, bitches and holes.
That's my bad.
I got caught up. I can see why I shouldn't said it that.
I'm just leave.
Queen Latifa had ninety nine problems in the word bitch was all ninety nine. That women empowerment anthem became a hit and made Queen La Tifa the first woman to win Best Rap Solo Performance at the Grammys.
How do you like that? Bitches?
So the next time you think about hip hop icons, make sure you remember the young shorties, the bad honeys, and the all stars. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to record my own response to rock sand It's called faxaying give.
Me back my man.
He wasn't chanting, she just kidnapped him, not the bite off as.
Her fee.
Same bullshit as always Trevor.
Female candidates get covered less like politicians and more like miss Universe contestants.
How does she smile? Did she look good in addressed? Well? Steve if Harvey get her name right?
Yeah? But why do you think the media has this double standard in politics?
Politics? Negros's double standard is everywhere?
Have you not been paying attention to this wet ass pussy controversy?
Oh you mean like why Kylie Jenno was in the video?
No, ain't nobody talking about that? Goofy ass girl? Are you still in man?
No, I'm not talking about the song. I'm talking about why people are talking about the song. CARDI Be and making d Stallion have given us the sex positive stolid in summer, celebrating women owning their sexuality, something men have been doing since.
Adam ate that apple in the gardener eating and got his first boner.
Oh do say? I don't remember that part in the Bible.
The point is, male musicians talk about sex all the time, talking about their hard dicks and skeating everywhere, but when women do it, people are like, this is vulgar inappropriate? What about the children that look up to them. Who cares about them? Damn children. Cardi Be and Megan thee Stallion are not your nannies. I know it's confusing you see two women of color in a really nice house and you assume Aidan and Mackenzie are just offscreen with.
Their Mandarin tutor. But it's a huge double stand at Trevor.
Okay, do say, but to play Devil's advocate, you have to admit it's a really graphic song, Trevor.
Only in a repressed, patriarchal society. But people consider a woman's pleasure graphic. Men don't have to stense of their pleasure. Drake and Bruno Mars can sing about eating pussy and getting hard, but they still get invioded to think seeing to dinner.
But if Cardi B.
Does it, she's a flat who's taking down society.
Well, you know, there is another thing. I mean, there's something about rap that as soon as some white people hear it, it sounds graphic, you know, just because it's rap. Like I could be like it's really cool to stay in school, and then some white people would be like whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, sir, you know, so there's always a chance that the problem wasn't the message as much as the fact that it's hip hop.
Okay, First of all, don't ever do that again. That was offensive for a whole different reason.
No, No, I was just trying to show, like, like when you say something with the flow, how it.
Goes whatever it was stack Okay. The point is we don't live in a society that's comfortable with women claiming their sexuality. It doesn't matter if it's rap or country. I bet if it was a country music started saying the same lyrics, all these men would still be upset.
I don't know. I don't know about that. Dull say it like, I feel like now you're turning it into like a hypothetical argument or what people's reaction would be if a country music starts sang the song like we we don't know.
No, you don't know what I called my girl. Margot Price is a Grammy nominated country star. To help me prove my point, come on, Margot, take it way.
Look, canita hard hit a deep stroking the head me tanga weeed snoker n a car to sneak.
I need a king Cobra got a rock openin over. He's got some pretty baby. That's where I'm hitting.
Who is he?
Ain't n baby?
Just like spreading got a beard on.
Now I'm trying to wear it.
Let him taste and now he's dying. Petty, don't spit.
I wanna go, I wanna go.
I want joke, wanting to tell youselfing on dang.
With thing swings in the back of my throat.
Head games fired, No, Sonny's going in time baby coming.
Out sockey ride that bab cops. He was behind me, spit on his mind and me trying to sun me. Yeah, yeah, give the superposy babe, bring me a fucking in mumpsy babe.
Give me everything you got, Give me everything you got, Give me everything everything, everything you got.
Weirdless sposybe.
We'll see how they like that one do I'll say.
Damn do. I'll see that was that was actually amazing. I mean it's still graphic, but that was amazing. How did you get muggel price to do that?
You don't know me, trapper.
You think I've been all day sitting at home, organizing my closets, doing things baby, which reminds me, I gotta find something that starts with g BE.
My guest tonight is Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and actor Mary J. Blige. She's here to talk about her new documentary that explores her early days in the music industry and the making of her iconic nineteen ninety four sophomore album, My Life. Mary J. Blige, Welcome to the daily social distancing show. Thank you Wow. There are few people I get to interview or get to speak to who have made more of an impact, not just in a genre or in music, but in society. You are
a soundtrack to periods of time. You're a soundtrack to emotions and feelings that human beings have experienced over many, many, many years. I mean, you know. With with eight multi platinum albums, with nine Grammy Awards, through two Oscar nominations, the list is endless. You are truly the queen. And now, for the first time ever, we get to see you telling your story in a way that we never have before. My Life, the documentary Mary J. Blige, Why the Story and Why Now?
Well, about two years ago, the whole world was celebrating the twenty fifth anniversary out of My Life album. People were giving testimonies online and you know, people. I was running into people, and you know, the whole thing about you know, this album saved my life again, was coming back up against so all. It was it was time, and I felt like it was important to do it.
Years later, you know, on the twenty fifth anniversary especially, you know, Nas and I both were on the Royalty Tour and he was celebrating his twenty fifth anniversary of The Illmatic, Right, it was just so special, like it was just time. It was just time to tell the story because I'm coming from a place of strength now. So now i go back and revisiting, Okay, it's gonna hurt and all of that stuff, you know, to revisit
all those painful times. But I'm strong enough now because I've been through so much that.
I can talk now. It's really interesting that you bring that up, because for many people, that's what my life was. What you were talking about was less of a facade. It was this is my life, this is my pain, this is what I'm going through. Looking back on it now, do you think that was cathartic for you as a person or do you think it made you relive the pain constantly as you were singing those songs. It was.
It was both because I didn't know how to get out of the pain, you know, but it was something I had to do in order to start the healing process with you know, without even knowing I was healing. So just you know, putting my pain out there and stuff like that was like a cry for help. And then when all the fans responded, it was like, oh wow, now it's a responsibility subconsciously because thing for you because I'm still in pain, I'm still in hell.
So it was it.
Did so many things that I didn't know it was doing, you know, because while I was in it, I was in it. It was dark, it was suicide, it was all types of stuff. But then the fans were like, it's saved in my life. And now when I look back, like years later, I'm like, wow, I didn't know I did so much.
Yeah, you know, I would love everyone to watch this documentary because what you do is you strip away all of the facades. You show us what went into Mary J. Blige my life in a way that I don't think we ever ever would have thought. I mean, you show us your journey growing up, you know, struggling through poverty. We see your life when drugs become a big hindrance in your world. We see you going through a world
of domestic abuse. We see all of these things happening to you as Mary J. Blige, and it's hard to believe that you survived. Was there a time when you didn't think that you would see the other side? Yeah?
During My Life album, I didn't think I was going to make it. During a Share my World album, I didn't think I was going to make it. But I stopped thinking about it after a while and I just started. I just kept self medicate and trying to check out, you know. And it wasn't until the Normal Drama album where it was like, Okay, I'm tired of feeling like this. I hate feeling like I hate myself. I hate feeling
like I want to commit suicide now. I don't want to die, but I don't know how to stop doing this.
I don't know what to do.
But it was that was the point where I spoke and said enough enough, and that was a decision that was made until I had to choose life. I chose life, and I think I chose life, you know, over my for my fans as well, because I said, if I check out I'm gonna take a bunch of people with me because these fans are so die hard. So I chose my life and I chose my fans.
Everyone has a different moment when they find that joy, when the trajectory of their lives changes from pain, trauma and suffering, and it doesn't switch overnight, but there's just a turn. And I'd love to know what that turn was for you, and what that moment was that changed Mary J. Blige's life and just took you to a world of healing and starting to live a completely different life.
Well, from nineteen ninety to twenty sixteen, I've been going through hell. It's been all over the news. Everything's you know, divorce, public everything. Twenty sixteen came I got out of the divorce and that's when I was like, enough, I've done something great. I'm beautiful, I'm strong. I'm going to take
my flowers now. I'm going to speak to myself in the morning about you know, positivity and you know, loving myself and finally finding myself not not things, because sometimes we we you know, when we're younger, we look at things as success, but things are not success. Success is when you can enjoy the things, you know, and now I could finally enjoy the things and enjoy my life and not feel like I'm in prison and in hell and take responsibility for what I did to put myself there.
You know.
Yeah, So that's that's the biggest thing, just taking responsibility for you and then all of that stuff have come out on the outside of you.
You gave so much to your fans, but there's no doubt that you also gave so much to hip hop as an industry, just as a concept. You know. Now you hear hip hop everywhere. There was a time when hip hop had one of the worst stigmas attached to it, and I know a lot of record executives back in the day didn't want hip hop associated with R and B. They didn't want hip hop in any sort of mainstream music.
But you thought to have it not once, not twice, not three times, but on every single song on that album. What was it about hip hop that Mary J. Blige loved so much that made you go, you know what, I want to give hip hop a platform in my album, in my world.
Well because growing up in the inner cities and in the projects, hip hop gave us the boys. Hip Hop gave us an identity. It spoke our pain, you know, every rapper, you know. It gave us something to dance to. It gave us something to feel swaggy too, to have attitude, to have to just you know, wear all of our chains and all of our jewelry and be proud of who we were growing up, you know, in the inner Cities, and you know and that, you know, hip hop won me my first Grammy. You're All I Need was my
first Grammy ever, and I was proud of that. And I'm proud to be the Queen of hip hop soul because hip hop has given me from from from from the day, from from the first time I heard the Funky four plus one more and the Sugar Hill Gang like I was a little girl. You know, it gave me something. It gave us attitude, It gave us dimension. It just gave us, you know, the ship that we have.
It feels like you're on a different journey, and it feels like the moniker of Queen is going to just move from from one industry to another. I mean, you are the queen of hip hop soul, you are the queen of R and B. And now every time we see you on screen. It feels like it's only a matter of time before we also go No, MARYA Jay Biden is also the queen of Hollywood, because I mean, two Oscar nominations is no joke in anybody's career. And now the movie Respect is going to be coming out
you you once again. I mean, every time you're on screen, there is something that you give to the audience that goes beyond just the acting. And I would love to know from your side, where do you think that love of acting came from? And what do you think it is about acting that you so seamlessly And maybe it's not seamless, but it seems so seamlessly slide into it just it just seems like it is you.
Well, when I was a little girl, I was put in a school play, a Christmas play by my music teacher, and I did really well, and that was the word in school, Wow, Mary did really well. But that was something I had to lead because living you know, where we lived, you know, you couldn't just be happy about anything. So I ned that there. And then when I got
in the music business, it came back again. The Jamie Fox Show was offered to me and I played Ala May and I think was nineteen ninety six or something like that, and then strong medicine came and everybody you know saw that, you know, I could act, and I was like, oh, I guess I can, So I'm gonna keep trying. So I just kept pushing for things that would challenge me. Although I was still singing that was
that's what I do. I wanted to do that. I always wanted to act, you know, as a little girl, and so when it came to me as a woman, I was like, let me go for this, and I went for it. And when I got the too Oscar nominations, It's scared the hell out of me because I was just going to do a movie and put all my pain on the table and I didn't know it was going to come back into Oscar nominations. So people believe in me. Now, Now I got to work harder, you know, at the craft. So it's just amazing.
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you this as a as a fan, as just one of the millions and millions and millions of fans, I just want to say thank you for being a soundtrack to our lives. Thank you for finding your joy. On the other end, of that story, because all too often, some of our favorite artists never get to reap the rewards of all the things that they've helped create. So we applaud you, we salute you, congratulations on when you win the Oscar. It's inevitable, it's just
going to happen. So I'll congratulate you now because I don't know when i'll see you again. Me. J Blige, thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for having in me. Take care.
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