Audacy Check In: MC Lyte
The legendary MC Lyte is joining us for an #AudacyCheckIn to talk about new music + more
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MusicTranscript
00:00time is one of those things you can never get back so thank you so much for choosing to spend
00:05your afternoon with us welcome to odyssey digital i'm your host for today your boy dj scratcher 94
00:157 the block you can catch me every monday through friday 5 p.m to 6 p.m in the mix
00:19and today we're going to celebrate a queen from the county of kings
00:23grammy-nominated legendary mc make some noise for mc light please hello thank you all right so you
00:31know um we've all you know we've all seen your career blossom from the beginning to where it is
00:38now but what a lot of people don't know is the beginning so that's what i want to focus on on
00:42the beginning of your career so what was your first exposure to hip-hop what was your first
00:48exposure my first exposure was uh in spanish harlem where my grandma my nana lived and all
00:55of my cousins who were maybe five six years older than me they were all listening to cassettes and
01:01i remember hearing uh the funky four plus one more the treacherous three and of course i think
01:08curtis blow was doing some things at that time it was a big deal because one of my cousins knew his
01:14brother kim it's like oh my cousin knows curtis blows brother you know it's a big deal but anyway
01:21that was my introduction and also of course i want to highlight sha rock being the first female mc
01:26that i heard rock yeah so that was the first and then back in brooklyn you know we was rockers
01:34rockers music you know so i was listening to yellow man and shaba ranks and all of them
01:40but when we when hip-hop finally landed in brooklyn i remember being at a block party
01:48and listening to sucker mcs oh but wait before that it was sequence and rapper's delight yeah
01:56yeah so break down the process of you getting your first record deal my first record deal um
02:02well i uh had a friend named eric cole who we went to school together in junior high school
02:09in high school we went to separate schools but we still stayed in touch and he pretty much coached
02:14me on how to write my lyrics and all of that stuff well he called me one day while i was in high
02:19school and he asked me did i want to go meet a record label that was looking for a female mc
02:25and i was like sure and you know of course i had to ask my mom and literally the decision as to
02:31whether it would happen or not was all hers because she had to allow me to get on the staten
02:36island ferry to go to staten island and you know what i later knew was an audition i thought i was
02:42just going to meet something right matter of fact i don't think i had ever been on an audition
02:47much less even knew what it took to audition i just went with my little rhyme book and once i
02:52got there they were like oh this is the task cam four track remember that yeah four tracks
02:59and so you know they listened to me rap i guess they were all checking me out and then they were
03:04going to talk about me later as to whether or not i met the test or passed the test and so i
03:10kicked out these rhymes or whatever and uh milk made up the beat to our cram to understand you
03:15right there on the spot i said this rhyme that i had in my book i think since i was 12 and and
03:21then later on they called and said we we'd like to sign you to the label so that was the first
03:27record that you recorded i cram yeah i crammed understand you i recorded it at clark kent's
03:33house also maybe like a clark kent dj clark kent's house about a year before that but just
03:38to some obscure beat you know it wasn't um it wasn't a made-up beat it was a sample you know
03:46like he was scratching in a copy of a track he might yeah i'm gonna have to call clark okay
03:52yeah so in any case yes that was my the first record was the first record i recorded in that
03:59studio which was i cram to understand you cool how long did it take to uh to make your first
04:04album light is a rock not long at all i think the guys you know between king of chill and milk and i
04:12think prince paul was on that album and i think puba was on that album as well it didn't take
04:19long they they had the tracks and i had a book of rhymes so i don't even know that i had to really
04:25write anything for that album it all was pretty much my whole life up until that point waiting
04:32to record right right you know people always you know we see on instagram and it pisses us off
04:37these lists all of these different lists and debates and stuff like that and you know and
04:42people always talk about you know the greatest storytellers of all time so everybody says slick
04:47rick everybody says biggie and i would jump into the comics and i and i will always say y'all always
04:51forget about mc light one of the greatest storytellers of all time thank you thank you
04:56very much and you know thank you for saying that i owe that all to slick rick and melly mel when i
05:02heard the message i just was infatuated i think i wrote down all the words i knew all the lyrics
05:09he vividly painted a picture of the bronx i had not been there yet and so um from both of them
05:17being able to really tell those stories so with so much detail that they definitely influenced and
05:24inspired me uh let's talk about your acting career when when did you start getting into acting and
05:30what was your first acting role the first role i did i believe was in 91 it's a movie
05:37it might be called fly by night i think i don't we were both in that movie oh we were
05:42so that is the title yes oh that's great 1991 so so it was between that and a play so one of those
05:52were was my first acting job it was an off-broadway play that i did with uh wyclef lauren hill lisa
05:59nicole carson darren henson and there might be one other person that i'm actually forgetting but
06:08in any case out of those two it was the first and i did have an audition that went horrible
06:17horribly or it's it's a working adjective you said it yeah it went terrible how about that i
06:25wasn't ready you know and there are some things in life that you can just systematically do and
06:32it works out okay but there are certain things that you must prepare for and if no one ever says
06:39you need to prepare you might even think that you're cool enough to just walk in there and
06:43do it and do it well and that was not the case with acting what was the role uh it was i didn't
06:49have no business in that movie anyway it was like nightmare on elm street it was like one of them
06:54like scary movies which um i don't really like and and now that i can sort of pick and choose
07:01what i want they know i don't do goblins ghosts i don't do dracula's werewolves and i don't mess
07:08around with any of that kind of stuff because acting you know you're really trying to embody
07:13this character and i don't want to have to i'm already moving through a city with what now eight
07:19million stories yeah um and so let me stay away from anything that's esoteric in that kind of way
07:27so but anyway i wasn't prepared so what i decided is to move to la and get into acting class and so
07:34i went to acting school for about two years and then i did uh for your love and you know half and
07:42half and yeah and then your other pivot you pivoted again okay you pivoted again and i and i say this
07:49and i'm gonna say this for everybody that's watching and everybody that's in this room
07:52listening mc light is now the voice of the culture you doing voiceovers how did you get into doing
08:00voiceovers um well i always wanted to do voiceover i was enrolled to attend norfolk state university
08:06to major in communications because i heard carol ford on radio here in new york and i was like
08:12that her voice sounds like mine i want to do that and so that didn't happen but years later i was at
08:19cd radio which then turned into serious um i was doing hot jams there and then i did cafe mocha
08:26which was on 40 stations around the nation um it just felt like a natural progression but when it
08:32came time for the shows and for commercials i went and i took voiceover coaching classes
08:40so that i know how to use my voice and i appreciate um i just appreciate you still loving to do music
08:48yeah because you know a lot of us from our you know from our era they don't want to do music
08:52anymore for whatever reasons so i just appreciate you just me personally appreciate you for still
08:58being a great artist thank you thank you very much i you know i didn't even know that the love for
09:05hip-hop was still embedded in me the way that it is and it was um sparked and and because of that
09:14i got into a real zone about um what i wanted to say how i wanted to say it what i wanted to
09:21say it on who i wanted to say it with it just became um laser focused and it hadn't been that
09:30way for a while because life you know i'm trying to do this and that and that and broadening the
09:34business and and so it is easy to take your eyes off of something that means so much to you when
09:41you have all of these other things going as well as distractions and so once i was able to sit down
09:47and get it going i i just was really excited who was somebody on on your new album that you were
09:54like i can't believe i just did a record with this person um you want to say it yes stevie wonder
10:03yeah totally stevie wonder um we've got so many great folks on the record of course we have
10:10production by scratch which i'm really excited about eric dawkins sings on that record who is
10:17part of the dawkins brothers they write a lot a lot lot um but then we've got q-tip and
10:24tony uh braxton and we we've got two albums so uh tony is on the second one anthony hamilton
10:32is on the second one on the first we've got common and um how was that stevie session though
10:38you know what's so funny is he called warren and he said okay y'all could come down i'm gonna do it
10:43so we went down to the studio and he was in the middle of recording a song for himself which was
10:48fantastic so we were waiting and then after that he had to eat we waited through him eating
10:56went back into the studio and he says i think i'm gonna do it tomorrow i was like what stevie tired
11:05i was like he had us come all the way down okay okay it's stevie yeah you gotta just be grateful
11:12to be in the room and so we left and then the following day i was like is he gonna do this
11:20you know so i hit warren up all can you find out if he's gonna do it oh i forgot to call you he did
11:27it already and he sent it to me i was like thanks i'm over here sweating because we're at the the
11:33ninth hour but yeah he did it and he also played the harmonica at the end and you know he's such a
11:40sweet and loving guy i'm a fan i'm a fan well let me just say this i'm also a fan of yours scratch
11:47thank you so much for um working with me in terms of what we had to go through with the record and
11:54to get it to where it is right now and i thank all of you for being here i understand that time is
12:00one of those things you can never get back so i respect your time and thank you so much for
12:06choosing to spend your afternoon with us um this this is a whole new mission um having
12:13to step into this arena warren and i with an independent record give it up for mc light yo
12:20thank you yeah thank you very very much