MC Lyte said she wouldn’t survive in today’s rap game because she likes to wear pants on stage.
According to an interview with Page Six, the hip-hop legend, who was the first female MC to release an album, “Lyte as a Rock,” said female rappers in Hip-Hop are more interested in showing off their bodies than expressing their thoughts in a rap song.
“I recently told somebody it would be really old-school for me to perform on stage with pants,” she told us, “Nobody wears pants. It’s that type of thing where everybody’s giving Rockettes and Vegas showgirl flavor.”
Lil’ Kim started the sex movement in rap with her debut album “Hard Core,” released in 1996. However, female rappers like Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Nicki Minaj have maintained successful careers by wearing revealing outfits during performances and music videos.
“I’m happy that anyone feels great in their body. Perhaps if I had a different type of body, I would be like, ‘Hey, see this?,'” the 51-year-old said, “However my walk has been extremely different from that in the very beginning. I didn’t want people to look at me. I wanted them to hear me because I had something to say, and I wanted them to pay attention to my words.”
Lyte, whose real name is Lana Moore, said she’s “never felt the pressure” when asked if she would alter her body with plastic surgery.
“I never felt the pressure to do any plastic surgery. I actually might have the smallest butt in the industry, and it’s OK, it’s mine, it belongs to me. If I had the guts, I might do something different, but all the horror stories I hear, I rather just go ahead, drop and do some squats.”
The legendary MC is one of the pioneers who paved the way for other female artists to succeed in hip hop. She’s known for rocking the gold chain, paired with doorknocker earrings and saggy pants with oversized shirts while performing on stage.
The Brooklyn native says mainstream culture is to blame for changing old-school hip hop by focusing on the male audience.
“Everything we have seen in hip hop, we have seen in the movies forever; we have seen on television. We literally, to this day, still see a woman in a lot of nothing, holding up cards prancing around a boxing ring to say, ‘This Round One, Round Two, Round Three,'” she said, “It’s not anything new — it’s just that the powers that be have found a way to monetize hip hop to the umpteenth power, and that’s why using every tactic that they were already used in other forms of media.”
She also stated that female rappers like Rhapsody and Tierra Whack deserve more recognition for their talent and maintaining the old-school hip-hop flow.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of time, effort, money, marketing, and branding going into those artists. It’s much easier to sell sex than anything else,” she said.
