Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin RichmondToday, we’re sharing a fantastic episode from a podcast we love, Louder Than A Riot from NPR Music. Louder Than A Riot connects the stories of hip-hop's biggest artists to socio-political changes we’re going through right now. This season, Louder Than A Riot is tackling the connection between hip-hop and misogyny. Hosts Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael dig into the unwritten rules of rap that have marginalized Black women for decades, and highlight the rule breakers who refuse to play nice.
Today's episode tells the story of the first female MC, MC Sha-Rock. She’s a rapper from The Bronx and former member of the Funky 4 Plus One More who laid the foundations of rap as we know it. But even though she’s a pioneer, Sha’s name often gets left out of conversations around the history of hip-hop. Why is that? Because decades ago, Sha-Rock had to deal with the hurdles that so many women in rap still face today: Getting tokenized by her own peers and played by the industry.
You’re about to hear the story from the people who lived it: Interviews with Sha-Rock, along with rappers who she inspired like DMC and historical experts like author Clover Hope. This episode is a meditation on legacy: Who gets afforded a legacy in hip-hop? Who gets left out? And how can you reclaim a legacy stolen from you?
We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did. You can listen to more episodes of Louder Than A Riot from NPR Music, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Pushkin.
Hey everyone, it's justin.
Today.
We're sharing a fantastic episode from another podcast, we love, Louder Than a Riot. If y'all don't know about this show, let me put you on game MPRS. Louder Than a Riot is an award winning narrative hip hop podcast that connects the stories of the biggest artists and innovators in the genre to socio political changes we're going through right now. This season, Louder Than a Riot is tackling the connection between hip hop and misogyny. Hosted by the great Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael, this team is digging into the unwritten rules of rap that have marginalized Black women for decades and highlighting the rule breakers who refuse to play nice. In this episode, you're about to hear, Louder Than a Riot tells the story of the first female mc mc Shah Rock. She's a rapper from the Bronx and former member of the Funky Four plus one More who laid the foundations of rap as we know it. But even though she's a pioneer, Shah's name often gets left out of conversations around the history of hip hop. Why is that because decades ago, shah Rock had to deal with the hurdles that so many women in rap still face today, getting tokenized by her peers and played by the industry. You're about to hear the story from the people who lived it, interviews with shah Rock herself, along with rappers she inspired like DMC, also historical experts like author Clover Hope. This episode is a meditation on legacy. Who gets afforded a legacy in hip hop? Who gets left out? And how can you reclaim a legacy stolen from you? We hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did. You can listen to more episodes from Louder than a Riot, from Mprmiter Music, wherever you listen to podcasts.
A warning before we begin this podcast is explicit in every way. Okay, So yeah, So this is the Bronx Music Heritage Center. It's giving very much Bronx after school, painted piano, drum set, community center, vibes, posters everywhere, good crowd, Q Crawd. We're the younger people in here, definitely here. I'm here with my producer Monos Sandrasan to see a Bronx hip hop legend. There's a small crowd in the community center. Grandmaster cast of the Cold Crush Brothers is cutting it up on the turntables. As we make the rounds to get a sense of who's here, we see an older white man in the front row.
What's her name? Charles tell Rat and what do you know about Sha Rock? I was really into hip hop, but I got into it later.
I didn't know about her.
I thought Jane was the first question, but y'all.
Rock was the first.
Kaz bathes out the music and people start quieting down. The woman of the hour takes the stage.
Her name is mc shah Rock.
We are so happy you have on the same the first female EMC is they were.
Were for those of you.
Jall's got on big shades, gold hoop earrings, and a black leather jacket. The way she commands the room, you can definitely tell she was raising the Bronx.
I was the first female EMC to help move hip hop culture with little or no resources. I set the blue print and I say that humbly, but y'all gott to know the truths.
Y'all gotta know the truth, especially when we're talking about the Bronx, and especially when we're talking about the history of the Bronx.
Y'all gotta know the truth. There were other female them seeds that came out in ninety seventy nine. I'm the first female I'm see to have a record deal, authentic female mobc to have a record deal. The first MC was national television Saturday Night Live. Yeah, I'm not small, but I'll take some questions. But hold on.
If you haven't heard of MC Shahrock, member of the Funky four plus one more and the first female MC, You're not alone. There's some specific reasons why.
See.
Some people get a raise from history, but Shaw was never in it to begin with. Part of the reason was because she was laying the foundations for hip hop before it was even really being documented.
Yeah, but the bigger reason is because she was treated like an accessory and an afterthought. This season is about how hard it is to be a woman in rap today, but imagine what it must have felt like to be a woman doing it in the genre's infancy. Now. Shallrock was no stranger to the spotlight. During her heyday in nineteen eighty one, she and her group the Funky four plus one became some of the first m seeds to bring hip hop to the mainstream when they took center stage on Saturday Night Live.
The next Group are among the best street rappers in the country.
Please welcome my friends from the Bronx, the Funky Four plus one more.
That night should have submitised SHOT's legacy, but it didn't. Instead, it led to her group's downfall.
They wouldn't talk to me, They didn't want to say anything to me. They was like, really fall back. I mean there was really no conversation, but like, why would you do that? Shot Rock? You know?
And the reason why Shyd's story is really where all these double standards started.
I'm Rodney Carmarchael, I'm Sidney Madden and.
From NPR Music. This is louder than the riot.
Where we confront the double standard does become the standard.
On every episode this season, we tackle one unwritten rule of hip hop that affects the most marginalized among us and holds the entire culture back and one then.
A new generation a rap refuses to.
Stand for On this episode, breaking down legacy, who gets to leave one in hip hop and who gets.
Left out from her rap crew, rejecting her to a twenty five year legal battle mc shot rock takes us through her fight to be remembered. Rule number two, Baby girl, your only funky is your last cut?
All right? Said, I've been dying to ask you this. Oh, Mike, who is your top five dead or lie?
That's mad hard But okay, I mean for me, Missy's on there, Kendrick's on.
There, Big is on there.
But you know what, you know what always seems so unfair about this question to me? It makes me think about all the biases that go into these lists, Like, you know, I know, of course everyone has their.
Own taste, but you're saying it feels like there's something more than tastes reflected in these lists.
Yes, exactly, it's implicit bias that's used as a way to cover up the fact that the people making the lists think that men are just overall better at rapping. And if there are any women on the list, it's usually just one token one, you know, and it's always the same usual suspects.
Lauren, Missy, cam.
Nikki exactly, But what about Jean Gray or Azalea or Rhapsoy or Megan. And that's why reimagining the cannon of the Greatest mcs takes real work.
We talk to somebody who's doing exactly that.
When you're thinking about carving out history and the people who are in power, it's men, and men get to tell these tall tales basically about what they did, and men get to create history for other people as well.
That's Clover Hope, a long time hip hop journalist whose bylines range from Double xl and The Source to The New York Times in Vogue.
But even as a revere critic Clovid, Miss Shahrock story was brand new to her.
I certainly even as a hip hop had who was writing about it for like, since I was twenty and in it, since I was like thirteen, Like, I didn't know a lot of these stories about the young girls who were part of creating this culture. I knew the date of hip hop being created and the names of some of the early you know, like Grandmaster Flash, and I didn't know her name.
That was a big motivation for Clover to write The Motherlwe one hundred plus women who made Hipbob. It's like a reimagined Kennon that finally puts women front and center.
Shahrack is one of the first profiles in the Motherland. Clover writes that Shaw is considered, quote, the first prominent female mc clover says she wanted readers to know Shah's story because it's been hidden for so long. And that's the case for many rappers, but for Shah, the reasons behind that erasure reveal how bias is built into the foundations of hip hop.
I wrote a line in Theyer that I always go back to, which is that history is what a dominant group decides.
This fact, Shah herself is a living testament of.
This history has been changed over the years, and I see it in hip hop culture, but I'm not one to allow that to happen.
When we called up Shah, she was sitting at a kitchen table in Texas. It's a long way from the Bronx where she got a start, and back then, Sha wasn't thinking about legacy. She was focused on how having fun outside her corner of the Bronx was giving birth to hip hop. And as a teenager she discovered breakdancing. She rocked the oversize sweatshirts and lee jeans. She was becoming a b girl.
The first person that I saw breakdance was friends of mine, you know that had went to junior high school with me. You know, they taught me how to break dance. They taught me what it was to you know, up rock, what it was to you know, just hit the beats, you know, whenever you hear that certain break beats.
Shot traveled all over the Bronx, every part Jam, every house party, anywhere DJ's was spending breakbeats.
The circles was always male dominated when it came to be boys, and to me, you know, as a b girl, I was sort of like a tomboy, you know, of growing up and so you know when you've seen it, I mean it's just like a feeling that you knew that you had to be a part of.
Yeah, something big was happening in the Bronx and b girling that was SHOT's way in, you.
Know, gave you like a feeling like you I mean, like you could you could just like take on the world, you know, because it was I don't know, it was just like a crazy feeling where it was like it just empowered you as a woman. I know it did for me as a young teenager, and I'm quite sure it did it, you know, for you know, the young guys that was out there at the time.
At the time, she'd also been zabbling in poetry, but se I wanted to do something bigger with it. She wanted to rap and in show's day being a rapper and being part of a crew. One day, Shall was stopped by a young man passing out flyers.
He said, listen, you know we're having an audition. Would you want to come in audition for MC? I saysue, now, why not?
Sean had to take a bus uptown to the basement of a three story house where a dude named DJ Breakout and a manager named Jazzy D were conducting the audition. On the bus ride there, she rode up first rap ever and recited it over and over, and then, standing in front of the manager, Shahrock went in, I'm.
Showing rock and I can't be stopped for all the fly guys who want to hit the top. I could do it for the ones that are strong, and I could do it for the ones that are right or wrong. But I'm listed on the column that's classified, and I could be your nurse, and I'm qualified to talk about respect. I won't neglect my strategy. It's for you to see, so don't turn away by what I say because I'm on I'm bed when I'm talking to you, and the manager loved me, you know, he was like.
Yo.
She spit fired the crew like that. She rocked around so much they named a shot Rock right on the spot.
Shah officially joined up with the Funky Four in nineteen seventy eight. She was the only girl in the crew and her presence was felt immediately.
What did your male counterparts think of your early raps?
I was always a secret weapon. A lot of other groups were scrambling trying to find female mcs that can be able to deal with Shahrock.
There was really no competition during that time, especially for Shahrack.
That's Raheem, another original member of the Foky Four. Raheem auditioned for the group after Shah had already joined, and with Raheem joining the crew, the Fanky four were locked in. It was KK Rockwell Keith, Keith, Raheem and MC Shahrock. Raheem says he always looked at Shahrock like a sister and from day one he respected a technique, her style.
Her poise, her delivery.
Knew immediately when you heard her, as soon as you heard and this is Shahrock, and she made sure that you knew, whether you were a man or a woman, if you were an MC, that you you couldn't get with him.
Yeah, but peat this. He also says she served a very speciific purpose to the group with.
A female.
In the group.
You know, obviously that's to calm the wolves down.
And we needed that during that time period because if we didn't keep the audience suits that we entertained in the Bronx during the seventies, there was gonna be a problem. There was gonna be a shootout, there was gonna be a stabbing, somebody was.
Gonna get robbed.
Yeah. The Bronx was hip hop's birthplace for a reason. The earliest rap crews originated from gang culture and sometimes those tithes bled over into the party.
So basically, se I was seen as a dope MC, but also seen as a token even by members of her own group. And that was really spelled out when the group had some lineup changes and rebranded as the Funky four plus one more and guess who is the plus one? So why did they call it Funky four plus one instead of Funky five?
What was the plus one?
Because that seemed to differentiate you as you know, as being like the woman on there.
I think the reason why my manager did do it is because, you know, he didn't want to have like the Furious five or the Order the Furiest or the Funky five or whatever. He just wanted, you know, me to be stand out. So when they say the plus one, you know, it's like, Okay, we have the Funky four, but we got somebody else. The plus one.
Plus one could mean you're the most important member, but it could also mean you a footnote. But it was shy Rock whose innovations helped the Funky Four stand out and lay the foundation for where rap was going next. You gotta understand rap. It had been around for a minute, but still sounded damn there prehistoric at the time.
Seventy eight was the critical and the most important year of MC's within hip hop culture because that was the year that the MC's set the example of how you may see an MC ronniey today because the MC's were not rhyming like that. They were not rhyming in the format.
You know.
And I was a part of the MC's that made that format for future mcs. And I should say that I was the female MC that helped make that format for the future MCS.
People were bumping these tapes, listening to the blue brand of rap. It must have been like stumbling upon a new language, one that was made just for you, discovering new pathways for sound, with every break being sixteen bar verse. These originators were laying down a new framework for music. The possibilities were endless, and shot play with all of them.
My manager he went and found out how to buy this this instrument, and it was called the Echo chain. And so whenever I used to say a rhyme or I would say, like shah rock rock, rock, rock rock, you put the echo on it rock. Or when I don't say yes yes y'all, yes, yaw yes, yaw yes, yaw yes y'all, it would repeat every last word of.
My run that I would say, Now, this is the way we wanted none And at the same time, that's with your mind. It's the same identical beat one time as we possessed.
To be gonna make you want to run. And I became so synonymous with the New York City on cassette tapes or when I was rhyming in the echo, changing people was like Okay, let me run out and get this echo chain.
People all throughout the city called win or what y'all was doing, even guys who would eventually pop up all over those all time goat lists.
So I heard a funky four plus one. I heard that, and then on that record was this girl.
Now that's DMC of Run DMC, one of the most influential rap groups of all time.
And since it was a girl, the voice was so distinctive, but it sounded stronger, more grounded, more versatile, more unique, more impressive than all of the dudes that.
I had heard up to that point.
It was just a different energy and they were all switching off and wrapping.
But when it got to the part where they.
Said, shy rock, don't stop, just turn on your mic and you're ready to rock.
And this person, I don't want to just see a girl.
This person just went when the sun don't shine, the rain don't stop. But we got sounded caught punk rocket, Just get up out the chaders, I have fuck, We're to DJA.
I heard a rhyming over.
The break beat seven minutes of funk, and it was it was just the craziest thing that ever heard. And I heard a lot of people do it, but there was something about the way Shahrock delivered her rhymes that was just the pro to type to be. She was already dominant, the echo chamber just made her invincible.
Shaw's influence can be heard all over those run DMC records, like Run's House from their album Tougher Than Lother.
I don't know.
DMCs the most rock, So shah Rack has real influence on the art and science of MC.
But as the Funky four plus one more we're about to get their big break and introduce hip hop to the rest of America, she was about to see how being that plus one could be a minus.
By eighty we were signed to sugar Hill Records, you know, in June of eighty And with that said, you know, our first song that we put out with sugar Hill Records would call That's to Join.
Rock.
So Sha Rock was the Funky four plus one secret weapon, and when sugar Hill Records got hipped to him, the CEO of the label, Sylvia Robinson, latched onto Shatrock's talents and her innocence.
I was seventeen going on eighteen. But the crazy thing about it is that my mother didn't even sign you know, my my contract for me, my sister. She wasn't my legal guardian, but she signed my contract for me, you know, because I wanted to do it so bad. But yeah, I was seventeen. I was seventeen at the time, seventeen going on eighteen at the time that I signed to sugar Hill Records.
Since Shaw was under age, she had a sister signed and she didn't want a mom to talk her out of it. So wait a minute, was your sister signing? Was that? Was that legal?
Nope, they didn't care.
Okay, of the strength of that's the joint. Sylvia Robinson sent the group out on their first tour. They were each promised to make five hundred dollars a show.
What Silver Robinson did with this first sugar Hill tour is that she wanted everybody you know that was under her label at the time. She wanted to take us on like this major tour around the world, you know, to be able to, you know, let people see what sugar Hill Records was doing. And so the idea was great. I mean, we hit every major city that you could imagine, every arena, every place that we played at was sold out. When you going to places like Wisconsin. You go into places like Chicago, Florida, you know, places that we never even been before, excepted you know, rapped within hip hop. Like it was like like it was something new to them. They were going crazy. You know, It's like they treated us like we were like the Jacksons. I was like, listen, you know what we made it. People are loving what we do, something that we created.
And as the tour was coming to a close, the Funky Four plus one got another call from Sylvia Robinson.
Miss Robinson called us out, you know, on to it and say Saturday Night Live, want y'all to come and perform.
Debbie Harriet Blondie was set to host and perform on the show and she wanted to feature a special guest, and.
We were told the reason why she wanted us as opposed to Grandmaster Flash the Furious five of the sugar Hill Game is because they had a female and the fact that we were young and innocent.
Looking now, this was the secret weapon in action. Having shot in the group was opening the door for the Funky Four. But if being sugar Hills first Lady was paying off for her group, it was low keep hissing off the labels of the acts.
Everybody in their mamas was mad with us on that tour of US groups were mad. The other groups was mad. They was furious because they were not the ones that got chosen to peer on the Saturday nine nine.
That's why when the tour ended and the Tour US pulled up the Sugar Hills parking lot.
Fights broke out. You know, it just went crazy and left after that.
Yep, the Funky four plus one and the Furious Five three hands you.
Remember that fight, Yeah, yep, vividly. By this time, Raheem had left the Funky four plus one and joined their rivals, the Furious Five. He was in the parking lot that day too, just like shall I.
Had nothing to do with the beef between the Funky four plus one and the Furious Five. The person from the Furious Five who was physically aggressive towards the Funky four plus one was Cowboy thrust at Beach.
Do you remember what Cowboy said in the moment? How did he spark it off?
I don't remember what was said.
I just remember he went after a little Rodney Sea physically and uh he you know, punched him in the head or the face or up.
It's so much stuff happened within those last couple of days as far as animosity, you know, and and vice and arguments and all that stuff that went down. And so it came to head, you know, in the parking lot of Sugar Records, and.
You might be thinking, what does this have to do with Shah, Well, nothing and everything to all the other groups. She wasn't just seen his competition. She was now a threat just by being there. But the Funky Four plus one More couldn't dwell on that rap beef because a few days later, their big night on SNL arrived. Take us back to like walking to that studio for the first time, What did it look like?
What did it feel like?
It was like, Okay, we're gonna be on TV. We still don't know the impact of being the first authentic hip hop group to ever, you know, be on TV. All we know is that you're gonna see us on TV and that's it.
And while the Funky Four sat in the green room waiting for their performance, they watched the show live. The Valentine's Day special It's Essenel's newest black cast member, Eddie Murphy, popped out in a cupit costume during Debbie Harry's monologs They Love Me. Towards the end of the show, Debbie Harry introduces the Funky Four.
What she said was, I got the best street rapper, best street up from the country.
Please welcome my friends from the Bronx, the Funky Four plus one.
More on stage. You can see the cruise arms locked around Shot rocking like she's in a cage or a cocoon almost, and then the guys they roll off to the left and right and feeling that start. Shots dressed differently than the guys who got on type brooom card against the cane goes. She's rocking a side ponytail jeans, stuffed in a white cowboy boots and a pink fly. You standing side by side the Funky four plus one kick off the smash hit, the shot weaves in and out of the other versus perfectly wet.
You can call it.
We're doing We're gonna this.
You understanding, you're hearing the record, You're hearing the tapes and stuff like that. And then you wake up and somebody says, yo, they was on TV last night. That was the life changing moment. So I can imagine that the older folks seeing that, going Okay, what the hell is this?
We're not sure, we don't hate it, and then there's the people that just hated it. That's the number one iconic moment in the hip hop This was.
One of the first times a hip hop group was nationally televised. Esno was likely the biggest stage rap had ever been on at that point. But DMC and all the SNL viewers at home, they didn't realize that that night, Sha was carrying her.
Own plus one.
I was pregnant at the time. I think that was like about four or five six months pregnant something like that, and so I was like hurting. I was feeling kind of crazy and all of that stuff. My stomach was hurting.
And listen, this is nothing like Rihanna doing her big reveal of her baby bump at the Super Bowl. SA was doing her best to try and hide her bump and how she was feeling as she gave her best effort. You could tell from the recording She's stiff and slow.
With her movements. That's why you would see I would stay staying in a certain way, you know, and just look forward, focus out, you know. And so I was like, let me know, let me just get through this, you know, and I'll tell them tomorrow.
This was the highest point of the group's career so far, and she didn't want to blow it.
Because I just wanted to get through the television show. I didn't want, you know, them to feel a certain kind of way, you know, So I waited until the next day, and I told them one by one. I told Rodney because I was closer to him first. I told him first, and of course he went and he told the other guys, you know, within the group, and it was like trickets.
After that, nobody in the group had shots back.
They was like, really fall back. I mean there was really no conversation, but like, why would you do that? Shot? Rock, you know, and then it was like they were distanced.
The way Sean tells it, the guys felt her pregnancy would hold them all back.
They felt like it would hinder everything that we had moving forward. Shack's pregnant, It's going to slow us down, and so they were very upset.
Even though Raheem wasn't a member of the group anymore. He says. He relates to how the rest of the Funky Four reacted to Shah's pregnancy at the time.
They were concerned about their their livelihoods, you know, at that time, and I could certainly understand that if I were a member of their group at that time, I probably would have voiced the same concern, or maybe not.
At this point, the other members of her crew were treating Shad more like a liability than an asset. Her pregnancy was clearly a problem in their eyes, so they were.
Very protected of them, and I think when it's all said and done, they probably felt like, now if I covered you, then you cover us, you know, make sure that we're good, make sure that you know we ready to you know, take the whole world bostone.
Like you betrayed them or something.
You could say that. You could say that, but do you ever.
Think about the double standard of that, Like how you're choosing to do something with your own body could be a betrayal to them, Like.
I didn't look at it at that time at the time, you know, far as like betrayal. I kind of got it, you know, because not the fact that I betrayed them, but the fact that I loved hip hop so much that I could have, you know, thought about you know, there could have been other ways to you know, to do it or other ways that I could have made sure that that wasn't the right timing. That was a decision that I made. I mean, it was upon me. I wasn't gonna do anything else to terminate, you know, the situation, and I just had to deal with it. But after the pregnancy, that's when things went downhill for the fucking Plus.
How did it feel to have, like, have such little support from them, from your crew members, from Rodney and everybody once you told them.
You know what, I've never really blamed them for, you know, because I look at it like this. You know, we were all young. We were in our teenagers, and so where you expect for somebody, you know, maybe much older, you know, to be understanding, I think that they were dealing with their own feelings as well, especially being young.
So I gives the guys a lot of grace in hindsight, maybe more than they even deserve. Because even if she won't say it, what her group members did was messed up. They iced her out, and things wouldn't ever be the same after that. Shaw was scared too. She didn't know where to go from here.
I felt like for me, I was at the height of my career as well, you know, And I was more so nervous, not because I didn't have to support you know, my family, but so much nervous to know that it would, you know, put a damper on me moving forward.
Even though Shah was struggling to balance everything and get right with the guys, the four K four plus one was still up. That SNL performance had gone so well that Debbie Harry wanted them to sign to the same label. Her group Blondie was on only one problem, Sylvia Robinson and sugar Hill. They weren't having it, and it would be years before Shah could take control of her own career. By nineteen eighty three, just two years after the Biggest and Hell debut, the Funky four plus one had split up. Some members joined up with other crews, but shall Rock she had different responsibilities.
There were times, right, you know, where there was no income, no money coming in, no money coming in nowhere.
So once you had your daughter, like how were you able to take care of her?
My mom?
My mom?
And it was so crazy about it, right because and here it is we in New York City. People are hearing our songs, They're looking at us like yo, what's going on. You know, y'all sugar records, you know, out of the Bronx where your money at?
After it's Andel and the successor, that's the joint. You think she'd be getting paid. But after the Funky four plus one disbanded, Shaw was struggling to even see a dime of her royalties. At the time, she couldn't figure out why, because she thought her label ball Sylvia Robinson had her back.
Miss Robinson promised me that she was going to look out, you know, for me as actually for the fact that she became the godmother of my daughter. You know, she christianed my daughter at two months old. You know, she came up to the Bronx in her Rose Wars and christian my daughter at two months old. So I believe that she was going to look out for me, you know, for all the money of the songs and all the things songs that I made. I honestly believe that she didn't look out for nobody else. She was going to look out for me because she christened my daughter as a god daughter. And so with that said, I just thought about, Yeah, I just thought about this that I can get back into here. It's really deep.
I trusted Sylvia to do right by her.
She promised this that she was going to pay us. She promised that she was going to allow us to record as many songs as we want, and she was going to ensure that all our fruits of label would come to fruition where we would be able to monetize off of the culture that we created. And she promises that, but it didn't happen.
And unfortunately, this wasn't nothing new to y'all. Like remember how they were supposed to get paid five hundred dollars each per show.
So when she came out there on tour, we was like, you know, what's going on. Our money is short, you know what I'm saying. And she gave us this whole story, and so everything erupted.
You know.
She gave us one time we had asked her for an advancement and she gave us, like we thought we was gonna get, like us six seven thousand dollars, you know what I'm saying. She gave us like fifteen hundred dollars, you know, and we never seen no money again.
Black musicians have been getting robbed by the record industry since the beginning of time, but it hits different when the label owner stealing your money is family and.
Her being your daughter's god mom. I mean, did she had to see you struggling?
I lived in the Bronx and she lived in the match in New Jersey, in Englewood. She didn't see it. She may have known, but she didn't see it because she didn't come to the Bronx.
Selvia Robinson passed in twenty eleven, so we weren't able to talk to her for this story.
Sylvia Robinson had this reputation for this kind of like really screwing over these groups financially.
That's Clover Hope Again.
Women and andb vultures and also play a role in misogyny or play a role in this larger capitalist system and down play other women, and so it's not limited to just men doing it.
Shahrock did everything she could to see her clear of sugar Hill Records. She formed a new group called Us Girls, hoping the label wouldn't get its hands on whatever money came in. Her new crew even appeared in the classic film The Streets.
Since Sharrock is the mood with the magical touch, I'm like trying to finance, you know, I'm just the one.
I want to treat you like.
But at every turn Shaw was bound by her contract with Sylvia. Basically, she was in the three sixty deal before those were even a thing.
This is the reason why, Like in nineteen eighty three, I said, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna allow no one to pimp me and take everything away from me that I love. So I fell back and I never recorded again for a long period of time, simply because I felt the way for me to handle this was to regroup that my contract run out, I don't record, I don't do anything that anybody can take anything away from me again.
But even then, there wasn't a roadmap for an unsigned woman MC and hip hop trying to turn a passion into a profitable, long term career.
Sea's career hit a glass ceiling. Eventually, hip hop's memory of the first female MC started to fade too. Shah moved on with the life.
Until ten years later.
When she was in a record store and spotted a sugar Hill compilation on sale for one hundred dollars.
I'm talking to said, I said, Wow, this is they selling a song and I ain't getting paid from it, and I went on this this rampage to try to find an attorney, you know, to recoup my money.
Shaw I wasn't making money, but clearly somebody was.
She's I would have gone on a rampage too.
She decided not to take it lying down, so she rounded up all the old label mates.
I went to the Furious five, me and Roy. He was very close. I said, get all the members together, you know, and come in with me on this lawsuit. He got them together. I got to funk you for together, and I'm later on a group themed New Crash Crew you know, came on and so we fouled against Sylvia Robinson and sugar Hill Record.
In nineteen ninety seven.
Sean and her former label MATS by the suit.
They were seeking royalties as well as other fees from Sylvia, her husband Joe Robinson, and their next of kin, who are now running the company.
In this fight dragged on for decades, Robinson's were on cooperative and eventually both Joe and Silvia died before a final settlement was reached.
And finally, you know, to make a long story short, after all these years, we finally, you know, were able to revert everything back to us.
Now, Shah and Raheem wouldn't disclose to us how much money they got. But for Shah, it was never just about the money. This was about fighting for herself, for her fellow artists, and really for her own legacy.
What does it feel like to get your royalties back, get literally get get the credit for your craft back after all this time, after all this time of being doubted and robbed.
It feels like I've been vindicating, you know. It feels like that I am still here, you know, in flesh to be able to see the outcome, you know, and my kids, you know. And it's so crazy about it because I think that my kids know that I am a strong woman, you know, and they saw everything that I went through, you know, at that given birth. They heard it over the years. They heard me on the telephone talking to the attorneys. They heard my passion to other MC's, you know, they know how I feel about hip hop culture and to be vindicated bright and to allow.
My kids to see that no matter what you believe in, whether or not somebody do you wrong or not, if you believe that what you're doing is right, then you go with distance.
Other artists have tried to file against sugar Hill, but shall Rock she was the first to successfully get everybody paid.
Yeah, and that's the fight. That's just as historic as being the first few l MC. It's a claim to fame. Nobody else can make you feel like there's been times when you weren't respected for your craft, And do you feel respected for your craft now?
I used to, you know, think about you know, not being respected in the beginning, you know, And so I learned not to take it personal. And so instead of me, you know, feeling like I was disrespected because people didn't know who Schavrock was, I took a different approach. I started telling people my story and will continue to tell people my story. And the more that I tell a person in story and they say, oh, what, that didn't happen, then prove it didn't. I can prove that it did. And so no, I learned to not take it personal, but to be personal and let people know who I am and what I meant and how I was instrumental in helping to move this culture forward.
In spaces like the Bronx Music Carriage Center, Shah gets to define her own legacy.
But I just want to say before I get started about Shavrock. I just want to say, y'all, we all the we created a multi billion dollar business back in the nineteen seventies. You know what I'm saying, a multi being dollar business. I'm proud of that, even though I have never received or recouped the money. As well as Grandmaster Kaz and Mellie Mel and Grand Wizzard Theodore, we are still proud to have created this being a dollar business because you know what, when it's all said and done, it was never about the money for us. It was about the heart and soul of the culture. The b girl, the Bee Boy, the MC, the graffiti artist, the DJ, right here in the Bronx. So let's give a round of applause to the Bronx and everybody that represents HIPIP culture to the fullest.
At the end of her talk, Shahro starts answering questions from fans in the crowd.
Thank you for your contribution to the culture because of your voice at an early age of planning to see that women were equal with men right on the mic, hearing you as a child told me women could do it too, and that has helped me develop as a man, being into spaces with women, because if shy Rock was into spaces with the fucking walklus one more women could be any spaces.
So I like to thank you for thank you.
So we talked more to this guy after he calls himself brother North of Division X, and he says he was one of the people who stayed up late to watch Rock on SNL.
I had never been up past like eleven o'clock.
When the news came on, it was time to go to sleep, and I begged if I could, you know, to be able to see it, and my mom's let me stay up and somehow I was able to catch it at the beginning and fell asleep, but it.
Was The event was a small crowd, but Shaw's fans just.
Keep giving her.
I never knew realized that was a I was like yo, one for the girl. We never even saw it as like yo, she's a girl. And seeing that it was even a question because she rapped harder than a duke, you know what I'm saying. And her crew was hard. You know her crew back then, our crew was hard. They was tough, They they was dope. There was well respected.
One woman in the crowd named Keina became an instant fan of Shaw that night. Do you know anything about shot Crack before tonight?
Absolutely nothing?
Okay?
And what did the talk teach you?
So that she was a first female MC coming out of Lebronx or in general, and that was interesting. I never heard her name before and for her to have such an influence on what hip hop is today and for me to never know who she is, you know, says a lot about storytelling and why it's important. So I am very happy I came out tonight.
Yeah.
When you say says a lot, what do you mean?
Well, you know, the narrative that goes in the media is like whoever shouts loudest gets heard. And I think she's now starting to get the props that she's due, right, And it's not because she didn't do the right things. It's just people to know who she was. So you know, you have to go to events type us to start finding out the history and the truth, and you know, reading up on things and digging deep to not just accept what's being told and you know, your mainstream media.
And then something happens that wasn't on the schedule, grandmassacast, there's not a funky beat, shy hypes up the crowd.
Out of nowhere. She breaks into a verse.
Yo, Shot Rock, gets your own will no rock for the hot, get down for the low.
Never heard the words. They call it the way because I was one of the best. I'm on the right track. When you hear a.
Rock from the other female, push it to the top to get fling tail shot rock and I need to please you, don't want to get it for the fellas and the young ladies, keep my head.
And then Shaw invites random fans on stage to rap with her. It's a whole snipher. Everybody's swarming the stage.
Let's not brother, are you ready? Let's not a boy from the house without the County. Okay is in the house, and show the party go rock in the house.
So party.
Is in the house, SODA's party rock out.
In this room, in the birthplace of hip hop, Shot Rock is remembered.
Ready.
In addition set up.
The legacy isn't just about being seen, It's about how you're seeing and ultimately, who's lens the world is looking through.
Someone always has something to say. Everybody has a comment on your body. It's like if you're not true, they're talking about it. If you have surgery done. They have something to say. It's just always something to say. People think it's fun. It's like, oh, let's all join in and bash on the black woman.
It's something about the woman's body specifically that really triggers people.
Roberts, Dream Doll, Baby Tait and Doji take us through Rule number three. Next time on Louder Than a Riot.
Louder Than a Riot. It's hosted by Me, Ridney Carmartin, and Sidney Madden. This episode was written by myself, Sidney and Mono soond Rason, and it.
Was produced by Manasandrasan. Our senior producer is Gaby Bargarelli and.
Our producers are Sam Jay Leeds and Mono sound Rasa. Our editor is Sarria Shockley, and our engineer is Gilly Moon. Our senior supervising producer Rif Vincent. Our interns Jose Sandoval, Teresa Shia.
And p Lar Galvan, and the NPR execs are Keith Jenkins, Landa Sanguinei and Anya Grandman.
Original theme by Casa Overall, remix by Susie Analog, and the scoring for this episode was provided by Susie Analog and CASA Overall.
Our digital editor is Jacob Gans. Our fact checkers are Sarah Knight and Jane Gilban. If you want to learn more about mc shawrock story, check out her autobiography, Luminary Icon, The story of the beginning and end of hip hop's first female MC. If you like this episode and you want to talk back, hit us up on Twitter. We're at Louder Than a Riot, and if you want to email us, it's Louder at NPR dot org. From MPR Music, I'm Sydney.
Madden and I'm Rodney Carl Michael. This is Louder Than a Riot.
