![]() ![]() The first person that I saw breakdance was friends of mine that had went to junior high school with me. ![]() The very moment my taste for hip-hop is 1976 as a B-girl - you know, being out there, break dancing, watching young kids move around throughout the Bronx, traveling as nomadic B-girls and B-boys, just to hit those breakbeats. Using her personal mementos, Sha-Rock takes us through her entry into early hip-hop culture as a B-girl, her emergence as a pioneering MC, her groundbreaking (pregnant!) performance on Saturday Night Live and her long-running fight to preserve her legacy, in her own words. Yet she is not given her due as a trailblazer.īut Sha-Rock has receipts. She was such a titanic force in early rap communities that even DMC, one third of the game-changing group Run-DMC, cites her as an influence. The retelling of hip-hop history centers men, often excluding the women in the same frame, so if you haven't heard about MC Sha-Rock, original member of Sugar Hill's Funky 4 + 1, and the first woman MC, you're not alone. These are familiar figures in recaps of rap's ascent into a global phenomenon, but who gets to leave a legacy and who gets left out? The late 1970s and early 1980s were a formative time for MCing with seminal acts from Sugar Hill Records leading the charge: Keef Cowboy, of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, is often credited with coining the term "hip-hop," and, in 1979, the trio The Sugarhill Gang released "Rapper's Delight," which broke the music for a national audience. Hip-hop was born in the Bronx at a back-to-school party in 1973, when DJ Kool Herc started scratching for the crowd, but rapping didn't become the music's primary form until it transitioned beyond the party - with record deals, singles, tours and TV spots. ![]() To hear more about MC Sha-Rock and the fight to situate women in the rap canon, stream the full episode or subscribe to the Louder Than A Riot podcast. This story was adapted from Episode 2 of Louder Than A Riot, Season Two: Baby girl, you're only funky as your last cut. ![]()
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