The Crazy Story of 1979's Other Hip-Hop Lady

You all already know that 1979 is a critically important year for Hip-Hop since it's the first year rappers started to actually release records... Fatback and King Tim III kicked open the door, and suddenly everybody from The Sugarhill Gang to Kurtis Blow came pouring out.  This is real basic, 101 stuff.  And for historical first female rappers on wax, everybody names the obvious ladies: The Sequence, Paulette & Tanya Winley, and of course Lady B.  Lady B's the radio DJ from Philly who released the classic "To the Beat Y'all;" but there's another Lady who rarely gets talked about: Lady D.  We all know those other ladies' stories, but what about Lady D?

She came out with her first and only record in, yes, 1979: the self titled "Lady D" on Reflection Records, a disco label that dipped into Hip-Hop a few times.  In fact, it's a split 12" with "Nu Sounds" by MC Tee, who actually went on to have the longer, more notable career.  No, this isn't the same MC Tee as the guy from Mantronix.  In fact, as a kid, I knew him best as that guy who disappointed me when I bought his record and he wasn't the rapper from Mantronix.  But in retrospect, this MC Tee was alright, too.  He developed a soft, whispery style, signed to Profile Records and put out several indie singles throughout the 80s, some better than others.  Here, though, he doesn't really have the whisper thing going, sounding younger and more fresh-voiced.

But what's notable about this pairing is that they're both rapping over the same funky disco groove with a deep, catchy bassline and a lot of funk guitar.  So it's sort of like that Psycho vs. Iriscience 12", where it's two different artists' take on a single instrumental, although nothing on this record suggests they're trying to make it a competition like those guys were.

Lady D has the A-side and is my preferred version overall.  It's a fun narrative rap that turns into a little message about being wary of guys only out for one thing.  She meets a guy named Eddie (which I assume is a reference to Eddie Andre, who produced this record for his own E.A. Productions) who drives a Mercedes and quickly charms her.  It's mostly just a fun rap about their date... they go to Studio 54 and watch a kung-fu flick ("we saw kung-fu fighters fighting to the end - one fell down and got up again!").  But at the end of the night, he makes a move and she kicks him to the curb, when a chorus of male voices join in for a chorus, "don't try to see her ever no more!"

MC Tee's isn't really a conceptual song like Lady D's; he's just freestyling on the mic.  He's introducing himself and rapping about rapping at first, but it slowly evolves into a rap for the ladies Big Bank Hank style, explaining his love-making skills.  And though he never veers off into Blowfly territory, he takes it surprisingly far: "You hide your pride, you take a ride, you put the grease on the meat, that means I slide your hide."

MC Tee has writing credit for his song, but Lady D's is written by King Ronnie Gee, a rapper with his own singles on Reflection Records who went on to form the group G-Force and contribute to the epic legacy of "Roxanne, Roxanne" answer records.  His single "A Corona Jam" is particularly noteworthy because, besides also coming out in 1979, he's rapping over the same instrumental as Lady D and MC Tee!  In fact, looking at the catalog numbers, his single came out first.  So, really Lady D and MC Tee are using his "Corona Jam" instrumental, that's also of course produced to Eddie Andre.  And did I mention that it's also a split 12"?  The other side is "Spiderap" by an MC named Ron Hunt, and you guessed it... he's also rapping to the same instrumental!

Crazy, right?  Well, Reflection Records put out more rap singles in the early 1980s, but they only had one other in 1979.  It's a novelty record called "Take My Rap... Please" by Steve Gordon and the Kosher Five.  It's basically the same gimmick as The 2 Live Jews and M.O.T. but decades earlier, where the joke is that they're rapping while being Jewish, and stringing along exaggerated stereotypes to sell the premise ("let's boogie until we plotz!").  But that's not the most ridiculous part once you know the whole story.  The most ridiculous part is that he's doing his joke raps over the same instrumental, too!  They use a different series of catalog numbers for this one, but I'm pretty sure, chronologically, this came after the Ron Hunt and Lady D records.  And by 1980, the other Hip-Hop singles on Reflection had new, unique instrumentals.  But it's crazy that for a whole year, this label just kept on releasing rap songs over that one, damn track!

So I guess that's why we don't hear about Lady D these days... she was just one in a long line of rappers hired to record alternate versions of the same record.  But she was pretty cool, and hers was better than most - or even arguably all - of the other guys' who got to take their rap careers further.  Why not her?  Just another indication of how it's always harder for women in the industry, I suppose.  But I wish we could at least find out what the D stood for.