*Hip-hop icon MC Lyte recently dopped a Choice Mix for Red Bull Radio, which is an hour long curated playlist of hits from female rappers including Queen Latifah, Cardi B, Keyshia Cole, Beyoncé, Lyte herself and many more.
“I took the mix around the world,” Lyte, born Lana Moorer, told Page Six. “We went to Africa, we went to Columbia, we started in the US and ended in the US, but I was able to span over four decades of women within hip hop.”
Lyte believes female rappers today have more freedom of expression than they did when she dropped her debut album, “Lyte as a Rock” in 1988.
“Some things you hear now, you would’ve never heard back then,” Lyte said. “There are women who have been here before and paved that trail for the next female MC to come out and be comfortable being wild.”
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She added, “I’m sure if you talk to any female MC from my day, we all wanted to say something crazy. For us, we had to do a lot of holding back. Holding back because it just wasn’t proper to say, or holding back because it would be beyond anyone else’s belief that that would be in our vocabulary.”
The veteran artist appreciates how the current wave of female rappers can, “say exactly what it is they want to say and dress exactly how they want to dress,” while adding that freedom “comes with responsibility.”
“The growth has happened, but in some areas, it can become unruly.”
Lyte believes, however, that the day will come when a lone female MC will shift the game and deliver less raunch and more substance.
“It only takes one to break the mold,” Lyte says. “It takes one to swing it all the way back. She might already be out there. It could be a Rapsody, it could be a Tierra Whack, it’s just that the record labels need to support those efforts just as much as they do the others.”
Check out MC Lyte’s Choice Mix for Red Bull Radio here.
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