Rap icon Roxanne Shanté earns a lifetime achievement Grammy

Hip-hop legend Roxanne Shanté, who pushed the art form forward as a teenage battle rapper in the 1980s, is set to become the first solo female rapper to take home a Grammy for lifetime achievement.

“I would have never thought that I was going to get a Grammy,” Shanté, 55, told NBC News this week ahead of Saturday’s ceremony, where lifetime achievement and other special awards will be presented.

“My music days were over. For me to receive a lifetime award, not for my music but for the decisions that I made, is amazing,” Shanté said. “I’m here for deciding to do the right thing by everybody else, even when so many people decided to do the wrong thing by me.”

Her story goes back to hip-hop’s formative years, in the early ’80s. By age 10, she was becoming a fixture in New York City’s underground rap scene; at 13, she was an undefeated battle rapper.

Roxanne Shanté.
Roxanne Shanté performs at New York City’s Apollo Theater in Harlem in 1990.Al Pereira / Getty Images file

But Shanté made waves in 1984 with “Roxanne’s Revenge,” a response to the Brooklyn rap group UTFO’s “Roxanne, Roxanne.” Her single sparked the Roxanne Wars, an early rap beef that inspired at least 86 response songs.

Shanté grew up in the Queensbridge Houses, New York City’s largest public housing project. Among the residents of the Queens complex were many of her childhood friends-turned-protégés and collaborators, including the future music legends Nas, Biz Markie, Tragedy Khadafi and Big Daddy Kane.

Before she became a rapper, Shanté said, she was more interested in the wordsmithing of comedians like her idol, Nipsey Russell. But boys in her neighborhood kept challenging her to rap battles, and she would always end each battle as the victor. “The music found me,” she said.

Soon enough, Shanté was battling men more than twice her age — and still winning.

When she recorded the famous freestyle “Roxanne’s Revenge” with legendary DJ and producer Marley Marl, the seven-minute record cemented her name in music history.

But she said this was something of an accident. She did not intend for the song to become a diss track, nor did she know the freestyle was in response to UTFO.

While she was on her way to do laundry, Marley Marl, who was a neighbor, asked if she could record a freestyle. Shanté initially declined but was swayed when he offered to get her and her sister three pairs of Sergio Valente jeans.

Seemingly overnight, the freestyle hit radio waves across the country. But Shanté recalled seeing only subtle shifts to her life.

“Life after ‘Roxanne’ was honestly regular,” she said. “I mean, maybe you could say that I was a little more popular than I was, but I was already popular. Before I became Roxanne Shanté, I was Shanté from 12th Street, so I was already a well-known rapper.”

At the time, hip-hop was still considered an underground art form, and not the multibillion-dollar industry it would become. Despite the song’s success, Shanté was barely compensated for the performance, but “being able to travel the world was the best thing that I ever got out of being Roxanne Shanté,” she said. Shanté ended her rap career in the 1990s.

Roxanne Shanté.
Roxanne Shanté in New York City in 1988.Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images file

“It was never something that was financially beneficial for me. Like, I never got the big signing bonuses and I never got the huge checks and I never got those things, and never lived in a mansion or anything like that.”

Now, more than 40 years later, the MC is finally seeing financial rewards and industry recognition.

Rap star Nas, a former Queensbridge resident, said he was inspired by Shanté’s success in the ’80s.

“Roxanne Shanté sparked something in me that really made me want to take [rap] serious,” Nas said on the radio show “Ebro in the Morning” in 2020. “She is one of the reasons I really thought it was possible that it could even happen.”

That year, Shanté became the host of a SiriusXM show on LL Cool J’s “Rock the Bells” channel.

The story of “Roxanne’s Revenge” was documented in the 2017 biopic “Roxanne Roxanne,” starring Chanté Adams. The film portrays her life growing up in a single-parent household, helping her mother raise her siblings, becoming a mother at 16 and overcoming the day-to-day challenges of living in public housing. It also showed the world that her story is “proof that the projects can progress,” she said.

The film and Adams won the special jury prize for a breakthrough performance at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

Roxanne Shanté.
Roxanne Shanté performs at Radio City Music Hall in New York City in 2023.Richard Bord / Getty Images file

In 2023, Shanté was honored with the NAACP Legacy Award, and last year, she received the Hip-Hop Grandmaster Award from the Paid in Full Foundation, which pays hip-hop artists who were not properly compensated for their work. That night, Shanté went home with around $1 million.

If she could go back in time, Shanté said, “I would tell my 14-year-old self that it’s going to turn out all right. Like, don’t worry, don’t stress, it’s going to turn out fine. You may think that you’re not going to make it. You may think that you’re not going to live past 18 or 21, but I’m getting ready to let you know right now, you’re going to live to be a healthy, wealthy old lady. And stop swallowing bubble gum — it’s not good!”

Source link

We will be happy to hear your thoughts

Leave a reply

Internet Connectz
Logo
Shopping cart