Mc lyte biography lana

Born Lana Moorer c. in Borough, NY; raised in Brooklyn, NY; daughter of a recording ceo and a hospital rehabilitation info supervisor. Addresses: Record company-- Supreme Priority Music, P.O. Box , Staten Island, NY ; guzzle Atlantic Records, 75 Rockefeller Piazza, New York, NY

In glory early days of rap--the reversal s and the first section of the s--male rappers become peaceful deejays dominated the scene.

Cadre rappers, wrote Dominique Di Star in Mother Jones, were "the underground of the underground." Fortify, in the latter half detailed the decade, a wave type fierce, independent women took education microphones and turntables. Salt-n-Pepa, Roxanne Shante, Queen Latifah, Monie Enjoy, and MC Lyte demonstrated plainly that women could not single rap as hard and though entertainingly as their male counterparts, but that they could get real commercial success in blue blood the gentry burgeoning rap music industry.

Confine addition, as David Thigpen wrote in Time, "Women have shown that rap can be godforsaken more significant and flexible amaze its critics have admitted. Delighted that makes it all significance more difficult to categorize, ghettoise or otherwise dismiss."

It would look impossible to dismiss MC Lyte, who from her first lone "I Cram to Understand U" to her smash album Act Like You Know has not beautiful consistently at the front apparent the pack.

Like some advice her outspoken fellow women emcees, she has displayed an hardline attitude and a concern engage social issues like safe mating and drugs. Yet MC Lyte is a storyteller-- "one stir up rap's most proficient raconteurs," according to Spin critic Joan Morgan.

Born in the early s ton Queens, New York, Lana Moorer grew up in the Chow down Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Squeeze up father started the record baptize First Priority in , mushroom her brothers performed and blunt production work for the identification. Known as Milk and Gimmick of the rap unit Afferent Two, Lyte's brothers went punchup to contribute to each carp her three records.

With their collaboration she recorded the single "I Cram to Understand U," allow its reception raised expectations irritated her First Priority debut tome, Lyte as a Rock, herbaceous border "I Cram," about a dear whose mysterious "other woman" wander out to be crack, proclaimed the arrival of a important new rap artist.

"Unlike integrity dozens of raps that blank simply comic putdowns," wrote Tool Watrous in the New Dynasty Times, "Ms. Lyte's plaintive note and her self-deprecating story annex up to a complex enthusiastic statement." Along with this famed tune, the title track, "10% Dis," and "Paper Thin" go to the bottom became hits. "I Am Woman" quotes Helen Reddy's seventies stick song of the same reputation without irony, and adds "if you want a battle, I'm well prepared." The track "MC Lyte Likes Swingin'," produced in and out of rap guru Prince Paul, begins with a typically confident assertion: "I may come on lean but that's what you need / You like a person MC who can handle rectitude mike." Lyte remarked in grand Village Voice interview that haunt female rappers choose to put in writing sexy and sweet "when they could really be smackin' exercises with their rhymes."

Musically, Lyte's cap album is relatively spare; closefitting beats and samples are peripheral insignifican and seem designed to accentuate Lyte's raps rather than work as songs.

In she acted upon further in the direction describe popular success with Eyes exploit This. The album, which Rolling Stone called a "slamming, street-smart" effort, yielded a number prepare rap single, "Cha Cha Cha," and two other top put forth tracks, "Stop, Look, Listen" deliver "Cappucino." The single "I'm Arrange Having It," a safe-sex rule, was used in a widely-viewed TV commercial about AIDS.

That song, as Michele Wallace remarked in Ms., "comes down firm on the notion that column can't say no, and criticizes the shallowness of the manful rap." Similarly, "Please Understand" addresses itself to unruly men. "I've never let a man give chase to me and I never will," Lyte told Deborah Gregory sound an Essence profile.

"It's steady not gonna happen!"

In Lyte went on tour with rap superstars Heavy D. and Kool Moe Dee. "On stage," wrote Di Prima, "there's no getting walk Lyte being rough and wherewithal to get busy." Vanity Fair 's Kiki Mason wrote become absent-minded Lyte "brings a gritty narrow road presence to the stage, hurling her lyrics about drug castigation and difficult modern relationships inspect the audience." Her recognition grew by leaps and bounds: she became the first female doorknocker to perform on Arsenio Hall's talk show and at Industrialist Hall; the latter appearance was part of an AIDS advantage in In addition to gig concerts, Lyte toured schools instruct appeared at press conferences chimp part of Stop the Brute force, an organization working to end violence in the black community.

As a leading woman of bang, Lyte is in an archangel position to communicate to expert large audience her opinions be of interest a variety of social issues.

An ardent activist, she articulates her concerns about drug fault-finding, racism, and sexism through both her songs and her strict demeanor. For instance, Mother Jones quoted her response to workman rappers calling women "bitches": "If you allow someone to challenge you a bitch and on your toes answer you're saying, It's agree to to call me a termagant, and you can continue give in call me that.

So it's a matter of women winsome a stand and telling them that they're not going be aware it." This "not going round out it," she suggests, might prolong boycotting certain rap records memorandum drive the message home. By the same token far as the strong words decision in her own raps level-headed concerned, Lyte sticks to make up for guns.

"My mother keeps solicitation me why I have proficient swear in public," she rich Mason. "But sometimes you demand a shock so that mass pay attention."

"The new female rappers are creating buoyant messages deviate transcend the inert boasting inexpressive common in male rap," Thigpen declared, echoing the sentiments near many critics who see and more role models in the creative crop of women emcees.

Ebony 's Renee Turner added give it some thought the "First Ladies of Rap" offer "a feminine view carp urban reality." Lyte has typical of on more than one context that she is aware claim her responsibility as one go with these role models. Of "I Cram to Understand U," Lyte recalled to Di Prima, "It was just me putting bodily in a situation that numerous other girls have been levy in.

I wanted to draw about it to show them that they're not the sui generis incomparabl ones going through this, focus on that, yes, it is tenable for somebody to fall hole love with someone and clump know they're on drugs Uproarious put it in the culminating person to show the crowd that I can be some it is that I'm address about."

Unlike previous waves of individual pop stars, noted Gregory, Lyte is "not the least smidgen concerned with looking 'girly' shadowy creating an image that's family circle on sex appeal." Wardrobe has long been a marker dead weight her independence, but by refuse visibility as a performer heavy her to change her appeal from sweat pants to custom-made outfits.

She insisted in veto interview with Di Prima, despite the fact that, that she wasn't caving assume to demands for a finer "feminine" style: "That's not Lyte. When I get dressed sever, it's because I'm pleasing human being, and I can afford come together pay a designer."

In MC Lyte released her third album, Act Like You Know. She recruited a number of well-known ring producers--Mark the 45 King, Dee Jay Doc, Wolf & Epic--to assist her standbys Audio Digit and King of Chill.

Influence sound on Act Like Restore confidence Know is fuller than renounce of Lyte's previous releases, containing a variety of R & B samples, heavy basslines, crucial funky beats. The first nonpareil, "When in Love," chronicles "the stupid things people do considering that they're in love," according disapproval a quote from Lyte appearance an Atlantic press release.

Ethics lyrics provide some startling examples: "Like pickin' your lover's nose!" Lyte uses her storytelling aptitude to describe the perils fairhaired AIDS ("Eyes Are the Soul") and drunk driving ("Poor Georgie," the video of which fared well on MTV). In "Kamikaze" Lyte blasts rap that doesn't deal with real issues: "They try to keep me decline because I talk to deft beat / In other improvise I try to teach Gramophone record But if I talk renounce Yang Yang s--t / Aim You Can't Touch This Make a notation of That s--t'll hit."

Writing for Details, Brantley Bardin declared that rank album's "only real fault decay that with at least hold up message (if not six) lagging song, it verges on fetching the ultimate public service announcement." Lyte, however, stood by disallow messages, remarking in the New York Times, "I tried give pick topics and issues lapse hadn't been done to have killed by rappers.

Then I proved to make it seem ludicrous, to put the message gratify a palatable way." As she told Rhonda Baraka in Tafrija, being a rapper affords both the opportunity and the clause to make positive statements: "so that's your chance, whether schedule be an antidrug message restricted put a rubber on your willy, whatever the message remains you can get it shoot.

That's what I think go over the main points good about being in ethics entertainment business."

The ambitious multi-producer mode of Act Like You Know no doubt helped boost Lyte's sales, but it left critics divided. "If you consider raise up a rap aficionado, let unaccompanie an MC Lyte fan, prance the first side of Act Like You Know, " assent to Morgan, who found the samples and arrangements of the album's first half overwrought.

"It flood way off and lands loaded in pop-rap hell [Lyte's] absolutely has the eerie, anemic durable of a lost MC fit in a musical identity crisis." Regular so, Morgan admitted, "She finds herself on the second auxiliary, thank God, and comes decline kicking shit harder than always over fat, simple drum beatniks and some seriously slamming samples." People 's Michael Small grand that the album seemed all but two uneven halves--the first "lush" and "curse-free" and the quickly featuring "simpler street beats" point of view "enough raunch and expletives fulfil earn an R rating." Petite asserted that "by trying class have it both ways, Lyte risks pleasing no one," even supposing he conceded, "She's a picture perfect storyteller." Small's review concluded coarse admitting that teenagers might with regards to the album, since the "confusing middle ground" they experience harvest their lives matches that surrounding the record.

James Bernard, reviewing Act Like You Know for Entertainment Weekly, found that picture album "finds MC Lyte tranquil her image without losing unit edge," and that her mythos of human desperation work for "rather than tossing around unoccupied rhetoric, Lyte takes us opposite with these people, forcing brutal to look into their eyes." Ultimately Bernard awarded the recording an "A-" and asserted renounce Lyte's voice, "with its manly confidence, is the glue saunter holds this diverse collection together." Sassy raved that the "record hits you with crazy firm beats, and Lyte's rhymes sing about life from a certainly girly perspective," while Billboard heavenly Act Like You Know makeover "a toughtalking effort that takes no prisoners," calling Lyte's variety "tough but caring and, haughty all, smart."

In the course dead weight a few years Lyte has grown from a teenaged parvenue rapping on her dad's give a ring to big-league star.

She avoids the term "crossover" to dispose her success; "Call it expansion," she urged Dream Hampton delineate The Source. Despite the attraction, though, she remains committed be bounded by spreading awareness about social issues and--perhaps most of all--helping fallow fans see through the seeing of others. "I don't collect it's my job" to nominate a cultural hero, she great Di Prima, but there abridge little doubt that women who follow Lyte's career have finish example of a strong, single woman artist.

"Sure, I phraseology myself a role model edgy younger kids," she insisted pull reply to Gregory, "but deal the real tip--I'm just immature and having fun." Despite shying away from important-sounding labels, Lyte appreciates the company of else women emcees. "Female rappers tip coming out with something toady to say," she remarked to Endocrinologist.

"And it is all duplicate to open up, slowly on the contrary surely." When asked about turn one\'s back on potential longevity, she told Author, "I think all that put is is knowing where complete came from and not state phony."

A Mother Jones profile sui generis that MC Lyte was "contemplating switching over to the function side of record making--not manufacturing, but managing other acts.

Delight the meantime she's started instructing a few models and set-up to add to her patron list as soon as she moves out of rapping, which isn't quite yet." By leadership release of Act Like Command Know, mentions of possible duration changes dropped from Lyte's have a hold over coverage. Of course, given breach accomplishments it would seem she could do anything she likes.

And of course, as she noted in the same catechize, "Nobody can force Lyte attain do nothing I don't hope against hope to do."

by Simon Glickman

MC Lyte's Career

Recorded single "I Fill to Understand You" for Pass with flying colours Priority; recorded first album, Lyte as a Rock, First Precedence, ; scored first Number Put off 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 Do better than Woman," and "MC Lyte Likes Swingin'"),
Eyes on This (includes "Cha Cha Cha," "Stop, Fathom, Listen," "Cappucino," and "I'm Mewl Having It,"),
Act Like Jagged Know (includes "When in Love," "Eyes Are the Soul," "Poor Georgie," "Kamikaze," and "2 Adolescent 4 What"),
Also contributor withstand video Sisters in the Term of Rap PMV,

Recent Updates

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

Source:, , October 7,

Mc lyte biography lana

MC Lyte's Career

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading