“Lyte in the Dark”

Lana Michelle Moorer, better known as MC Lyte, was born in October 1970. From a child, she had always had a knack and a liking towards music. By the age of 12, she started rapping with some of her older relatives and when she was 16, MC Lyte released her first ever track titled “I Cram to Understand U.” Even at that young age, her first song was an attempt at resistance: it was written from the perspective of a crack addict and told a tale of the impact drug addiction has on someone and their relationships’ with other people. MC Lyte is a woman who came up from poverty in Brooklyn, New York and she knows firsthand the crippling effect on a family that poverty and drug addiction (which tended to go hand-in-hand in cities with large African-American populations at this time) can have. When she was 18, she was the first woman to release a commercially successful rap album title Lyte as a Rock. Her career in the rap industry has lasted all the way to the present and during the entirety of her career, she has recognized and been concerned with her impact on those who choose to listen. MC Lyte has always wanted to be a model for other young girls and show them that you can truly do anything you set your mind to. In the song The Wonder Years by MC Lyte, she uses lyrical artistry through her allusions to famous figures like Bob Marley and Joan of Arc to further her meaning of showing her emotional maturation as an artist. She uses musical artistry through the tone and feel of the instrumental, with a nostalgic throwback feeling to it, and this complements her lyrical ability as well and both of these things are intentionally done to contribute and support her resistance to the male-dominated patriarchy that is the rap industry.

The musical artistry of The Wonder Years is also apparent through the general tone and feel of the melody. This song came out in 2006, however if you only heard the instrumental, you might guess it was from the 90’s or even earlier. The timbre, the unique character of a musical sound that allows us to differentiate between instruments, also contributes to this. Right from the beginning of the song, there is slow melodic drums, a saxophone, and even a harp which together produce a very audibly pleasing sound. The drums are played in the pattern of three short notes one immediately after the other and then about the space of one note is silent. This makes up the general pulse of the entire song. There is a nostalgic feeling to the instrumental, which complements her lyrical style of this song very well. When the verse begins, there is an about 3 second guitar riff on repeat, which sets up for her “aa bb” rhyme scheme which moves very quick and succinctly. In addition, there is a stereotype that rappers from the 90’s and before cared more about the lyrics and rhymes than the rappers of today. The use of a nostalgic, vintage sounding beat contributes to her meaning that even though MC Lyte has grown up and aged as a person, she hasn’t lost her lyrical ability at all.

MC Lyte has always considered herself a lyricist — a rapper who puts much time and thought into what they say and how they want to say it. Also in The Wonder Years, along with most other songs throughout her career, MC Lyte uses lyrical artistry as well as a means of resistance through her music. The Wonder Years is a single that MC Lyte released in 2006, nearly 5 years after her previous single and this contributes to her overall meaning throughout the song. She feels as though she has matured as an artist, being in the rap industry for almost 20 years now, and she is more focused than ever on making sure her music and her lyrics are conveying a positive and inspirational message. She also loves to use game rivalry within her lyrics as a strategy of resistance (Glickman). She first makes an allusion to Bob Marley, the man who basically made Reggae be taken seriously and viewed as a real genre in the public eye. MC Lyte in her first verse says, “I got them singing Bob Marley hits. They don’t want to wait in vain. But I’m worth all the joy and the pain.” Bob Marley released a song entitled Wait In Vain which she is clearly alluding to here. Her fans have been doing what feels like “waiting in vain” for years for MC Lyte to come out with some new music and this contributes to her overall meaning of the song of how despite the fact she has aged, MC Lyte is still just as good of a rapper. She also talks very much about her competitors, primarily the male ones, and questions their motives, abilities, and their influence. She does this to further prove herself as a well-equipped rapper, as well as to challenge whoever may be listening to make their own music more meaningful(Morgan). For example, she says in the second verse “I speak the facts of life, while a whole lot of others are crap on the mic.” MC Lyte very much cares about her impact with what she says, and here she is supporting that, saying that she gives good life advice through her music, while other rappers are just saying “crap.” She says later, “I was born to the Lyte to give the spark in the dark, spread the truth to the youth, the ghetto joan of ark.” MC Lyte says she wants to the a “light in the dark” in other words an outlet for people who are or have been going through hard times. MC Lyte is a rapper who claims to have came from poverty and hardship, and so her messages in her songs are often directed to people coming from similar situations (Baraka). The wordplay here is within her name “Lyte” and “light” which are homonyms of each other. The comparison to Joan of Arc means that she wants to be successful in a field in which women are not frequently seen; Joan of Arc in war and MC Lyte in the rap industry. Another example of this message, in her second verse MC Lyte says, talking rhetorically to her competitors, “It’s sad these kids put you at the head of their throne, all you give them back is raps about your bone getting head in your whip, a studio in your home.” When you are a world-renowned artist, there are literally millions of people who are going to hear what you say and she feels that other rappers in the game are squandering their opportunity to make a genuinely positive impact. While kids are looking up to you for guidance and advice, these artists are instead just rapping about things like sex and drugs. A final example of this message is when she uses a single end rhyme and says “Some of us need to be doing the bid.
Spitting lyrics that’s worst than Ritalin for kids.” She’s making a statement here; both about substance abuse and rappers and their impact. Some rappers have been putting out “bars” that she thinks can have such a negative influence on young people, that these lyrics in her opinion could even be worse than Ritalin, which is a drug that children with ADHD will sometimes be given to help them focus and calm down. The idea that many people in the industry are putting out negative messages is one that you can see in many artists today like Kendrick Lamar and J Cole.

The two main things that MC Lyte has attempted to use music as resistance to in her career is patriarchy, especially in the music industry, and drug and substance abuse which tends to lead towards poverty and hard times in general. MC Lyte was quoted in an interview as saying that she “takes pride in being a role model” and she talks about these tough subjects because she knows that people may not want to hear it, but that they need to (Smith). MC Lyte views her own lyrical ability as a “gift” and one that she does not want to waste. As previously mentioned, she gets annoyed with a lot of the music from other rappers, feeling as though putting out constant lyrics glorifying drugs, sex, and sexism is making a bad impact on the world. She herself said that she attempts to avoid using the word “bitch” in her music and finds that the frequency with which male rappers use that word is “degrading and unnecessary” (Glickman). In addition, she uses textual artistry as resistance because she wants to make an example for other young girls who are growing up hearing and appreciating rap(Landrum). MC Lyte during the first half of her career would choose to wear ambiguous clothing (jeans, baseball cap, t-shirt esc) in order to force the listener to focus on her lyrical ability, not her outward appearance (Merriday). She was attempting, and succeeded, in showing the world that women don’t need to compromise their modesty or sexual integrity in order to make it in music. Through her use of allusions in The Wonder Years along with her general lyrical philosophies, MC Lyte has attempted to use lyrical artistry through her career to resist sexism, drug abuse, and portraying women as a sexual icon.

MC Lyte is regarded as a “pioneer” in the rap industry as she is widely considered the first female rapper to gain any sort of notoriety. She is an artist who has always wanted to promote an image of self-empowerment for women and to make a positive example for those who look up to her. She was honored at the 8th annual BET (Black Entertainment Television) with an award and a special surprise performance by Kendrick Lamar in which he celebrated her work to bridge the gender gap in rap (Landrum). She then spoke to the crowd and challenged the young women watching her to “keep [her] dream alive, and continue the fight” (Landrum). She is also a rapper who puts much time and thought into every lyric. I chose to specifically analyze her song The Wonder Years in which she uses both lyrical and musical artistry as a means of resistance against sexism. MC Lyte is a women who will go down in history for her unrelenting efforts, both through her music and beyond, to make the world and specifically the rap industry more fair and open to all.

Works Cited:

Baraka, Rhonda, and Gail Mitchell. “Rap/Hip-Hop: Lady Rappers: How Three TCB.” Billboard — The International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment Dec 07 2002: 47,48, 50, 54. ProQuest. Web. 31 Mar. 2019 .

Glickman, Simon. “MC, Lyte.” Contemporary Musicians, edited by Julia M. Rubiner, vol. 8, Gale, 1993, pp. 180–183. Gale Virtual Reference Library, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX3492600060/GVRL?u=west41605&sid=GVRL&xid=70eb5bb7. Accessed 31 Mar. 2019.

Kaufman, Michelle. MC Lyte joins Women’s History Month events. The Daily: Ball State University, March 14, 2016 Monday. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5MD6-35T1-JBSN-3469-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed April 7, 2019.

MERRIDAY, JODI. “Hip Hop Her Story: Women in Hip Hop Cultural Production and Music from Margins to Equity.” NAAAS & Affiliates Conference Monographs, Jan. 2013, pp. 1647–1667. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=118356323&site=ehost-live.

Morgan, Joan. “Mc Lyte.” Essence, vol. 36, no. 2, June 2005, p. 192. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=17060952&site=ehost-live

Smith, Danyel. “MC Lyte.” Rolling Stone Sep 16 1993: 17. ProQuest. Web. 31 Mar. 2019 .