EWA100 - #55. MC Lyte - Lyte as a Rock

55. MC Lyte - Lyte As A Rock (First Priority. 1988. From the LP Lyte As A Rock)

Raven Mack: I'll be honest... I didn't even remember this song when we did this list (which means I never voted for it, but in our group think system, it ended up this high). I downloaded it for the purpose of pretending I know what the fuck I'm talking about right here, and it's a decent enough song I guess. It definitely shows why MC Lyte was like the only serious female MC for the first 20 years of hip hop. Anybody else (Roxannes, Latifah, I guess Salt-n-Pepa) just sort of moved through as a gimmick. But Lyte was a serious MC, like a dude. That's probably why folks thought she was a dyke and she had to start making songs like that "I wanna a ruffneck" track.
But I can't act like this is the greatest song or anything, because this isn't even close, even upon heavy inspection, close to what I'd consider the greatest MC Lyte song ever. That would be one of her earliest singles, "10% Dis", which my boy Paul - or more likely his older brother - had on 7-inch way back in the day, like when the only rap we knew of was from the shitty AM radio station on Saturday nights out of Farmville that usually just played funk gospel the rest of the week. I saw some bullshit pre-packaged blogosphere-ready collection of "dis" songs the other day on the enter-web, and it didn't even have this track. Shit, I don't even know who she was dissing. In my convoluted mind, I know she was related to Audio Two, and MC Shy D was on that same label too, and Shy D was Miami's original rapper, so I think in the back of my alcohol-ravaged and drug-damaged head, I've always thunk Lyte was from Miami and she was probably dissing Trina.
So yeah, MC Lyte... she wasn't just a woman rapper, she was a for-real rapper... like probably about the 1,079th best rapper ever. Maybe she should've dressed to show off her breasts a little better or something.

Mike Dikk: Anything having to do with ladies doing stuff is always a touchy subject for me to write about, because I’m missing the regular PC filter most people have in their brains that stop them from saying sexist shit. I really don’t mean it, at least I don’t think I mean it, but it just comes out whether I like it or not.
This is also a weird one for me because I’m usually on the side of most other male rap fans that think lady rappers suck or are just too busy rapping about their vaginas for me to relate. I was ready to fluff my way through this one to avoid confrontation, but then I thought about how MC Lyte had a whole gang of songs better than this one. THEN, that got me all confused, because maybe this really is the best MC Lyte song, but I’m too sexist to see that because I like her manlier songs more. Finally, I came to the conclusion that I’m not sexist because I like more than one MC Lyte song and I can recognize them if they were played and to ignore the fact that in the beginning of this song when Milk D is talking, I always thought it was MC Lyte because they have the same voice, possibly because MC Lyte is secretly a dude or even freakier, Milk D is really MC Lyte and that’s why no one’s heard from Milk D in quite a while, kind of like how Michael Jackson and LaToya Jackson have never been in the same place at the same time.
Listen here fucker. I am not a sexist. Sometimes I just think dudes are better at things than ladies. I’ve owned the Hoes With Attitude record, which taught me what a Kotex was, thus making me closer and able to relate to the female species. I also bought that Boss tape the day it came out because that “Deeper” song was the shit, though deep down I wished a man used the beat and not a fake lady gangsta rapper. Nevermind that. I am not a sexist. I just wish “Cha Cha Cha” or “Cappucino” or a number of other MC Lyte songs were chosen so I could talk about how much I loved them like the non-sexist I am. FUCK MAN, WOULD A SEXIST EVEN KNOW TITLES TO MC LYTE SONGS?!?! I THINK NOT.

Download: MC Lyte - Lyte as a Rock

The only video link to this song on Youtube doesn't allow embedding, so here is a clip of "The Hip Hop All Stars" on The Arsenio Hall Show. I believe MC Lyte is in there somewhere.