Roxanne Shante: An Incredible Journey
By Nolan Strong
'Before Kim,Foxy, and Salt n Pepa, a 14 year odl gril shook up the world of hip hop'
http://allhiphop.com/
Roxanne Shante’s name recently surfaced and grabbed headlines due to a recent lawsuit she filed against R&B diva Janet Jackson.
For those old enough to remember, Shante was [is] one of the most well known and well respected early figures from rap. As part of Marley Marl’s Juice Crew, Shante, at the tender age of 14, caught everyone’s ear in 1984 with “Roxanne’s Revenge.”
The record contained the 14-year-old delivering an amazing verse in one of the first of many responses to U.T.F.O’s hit “Roxanne, Roxanne.”
The hit took her for a ride on the rollercoaster of the music business and the experience was so difficult, Shante hopped off the bizarre ride by the time she was 18-years-old.
She compares Hip-Hop to a ‘bad boyfriend’ and reveals that the rap game didn’t treat her as well as “he” could have.
Despite the pitfalls, Shante held on and now runs a successful psychology practice in New York. Her story is inspirational, at the least.
AllHipHop.com: Why are you suing Janet Jackson?
Roxanne Shante: Personally, I don’t have a problem with her. I just figured, maybe it was just an oversight that they didn’t pay the invoice for using my voice on the record. I figured you know, maybe this is something that she over looked with the breast popping out, it just caught up in the mix. So I fell back off of it, like when they get around to it, they’ll get around to it. But then someone contacted me from their office, trying to say that it wasn’t my voice, which really infuriated me.
AllHipHop.com: What song is it?
RS: It’s song #13 on Damita Jo, SONG TITLE. It’s the familiar “So Fresh” words that everyone samples. Any true hip-hop head is gonna say, when we hear those words “so fresh,” we know that’s Shante.
AllHipHop.com: Do you own the rights to those earlier recordings now?
RS: Yes I do.
AllHipHop.com: That came out on the Pop Art record label out of Philadelphia, right?
RS: Yes. I’ve owned the masters for over 9 years. What people will try to say is that they took it from the Biz Markie record, “Nobody Beats the Biz,” but it doesn’t come from that, it comes from “The Def Fresh Crew.” Biz was on the Pop Art label too.
AllHipHop.com: Is this the first type of lawsuit you have had to go through like this?
RS: Usually it doesn’t have to go as far as a lawsuit. Usually they rectify it and admit that it’s my voice. All it takes is one true hip-hop head in the circle to say “you know what, that is her voice.” I don’t care how many times you try to say it’s not; you know that is her voice. So let’s just pay her for it. She could pay me for what she would pay for one of her handbags. It wasn’t a big deal. I don’t feel like I am being wronged by the industry or anything like that though.
AllHipHop.com: So you’re happy with life?
RS: Out of all the old school rappers that I quote unquote know or socialize with, I am ok and I am fine. Shante is happy. Life after Hip-Hop for me has been better than Hip-Hop had ever been to me.
AllHipHop.com: What are you up to know?
RS: I am a psychologist with a private practice in Manhattan. I also do a lot of voiceovers for certain cartoon characters, I do a lot overseas.
AllHipHop.com: What cartoon characters?
RS: I can’t really discuss it yet, but I can say is that it’s three little girls who are superheroes involved.
AllHipHop.com: With your private practice and your other endeavors doing well, do you ever plan to come back to Hip-Hop?
RS: I love Hip-Hop. It will always be a part of me. But Hip-Hop is like a bad relationship for me. When I dated Hip-Hop, it didn’t buy the things for rappers that it buys now. I talk about Hip-Hop like it was a relationship. It was like a man. It wasn’t that good to me. I enjoyed it, but everyone else was making me a commodity and really taking advantage of me. It turned it into something I didn’t like. So it would have to be incredible for me to come back.
AllHipHop.com: How did people take advantage of you?
RS: Well, you know my age.
AllHipHop.com: How old were you?
RS: I was 14, with no parents, no guardian, and no accountants.
AllHipHop.com: What happened to your parents?
RS: They weren’t around. I was on my own. I didn’t really have any guidance. So I was just going and doing as I was told. So when you had people like Marley Marl telling me after a show that I am supposed to split the money evenly, I believed that.
AllHipHop.com: Was your relationship with Marley Marl more than a friendship and business relationship?
RS: Umm..uhh..My relationship with Marley was, I don’t know how I can explain it. My relationship with Marley wasn’t as good as it should have been. I am not a scorned woman or a mad girlfriend.
AllHipHop.com: You were only 14 when this all happened? When did you know you wanted to get out of it?
RS: When I was 18.
AllHipHop.com: So what did you do, take the money that you made from the rap game and go back to school?
RS: No. When I left the rap game, I left with absolutely nothing. I left with nothing. I couldn’t even get books. They would say "Don’t worry about it Shante, I’ll meet you at Barnes and Nobles and we’ll get the books.” I couldn’t even get them to help me with books. They supported the negative things, but they couldn’t support the positive.
AllHipHop.com: How did you make it through school?
RS: There was a clause in my contract that said they had to pay for my education. Regardless of how far it went. And what happened was, they felt like she’s 14. By the time I was 15 I was pregnant with my son. They felt like they could through that in there because they thought I would never use it. I mean they were like “look at her now.” They thought I was going to get on drugs. I didn’t. And as long as they had my school covered, I was good. I didn’t get school loans, so I had to copy pages out of other people’s books. I would stand in front of the machine with a bunch of nickels and make copies. Page for page for page for page. And every time I copied a page, my love for Hip-Hop was going away, more and more and more. My story isn’t a happy one, but it had a happy ending. I was straight out of the group home; they dangled the custody of my son over my head because I was so young, so Hip-Hop became a labor of love. If you don’t do this, this is what’s going to happen. One day I was finally like you know what? Forget it. It was right around the time I became a Vegan.
AllHipHop.com: How old were you when you decided to be a Vegan?
RS: 18. I would see people devouring meat and then acting like animals. I just figured it had something to do with the food.
This is an on-going question in my mind. At least once every couple of months, this is raised as an issue. So do you like it here or what? Or is this just a space on the 'net that you "tolerate?"
And he does look kinda like Jordan Knight from NKOTB w/ a tan. Speaking of that unibrow, you can't tell b/c he got glasses on (probably to hide that furry thing)! I seent his ex-woman Rolanda Watts on some commercial with Vernee Watson (Will Smith's mom of Fresh Prince). Ol' girl got a wrinkly neck, which shows her age. 
Hybrid Mode
