Artist: Monie Love
Best Album: Down to Earth
Best Song: Monie in the Middle
This Letter Could Have Been About: Mac Lethal, Macklemore, Murs, MC Lyte, MC Hammer, Missy Elliott, Mos Def, Nicki Minaj
Why I’m Writing About This Artist: Annoying fact: On the first run-through of my list of posts for the Challenge, I got to M before I featured a female artist. A later draft had me stick Jean Grae in at J instead of Jurassic 5, but here’s the really annoying part: the first letter I featured a female artist on had three other women who could easily have owned the letter, and basically forced me to do the special bonus points on Sundays, because I cannot ignore Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj.
But: Right. Monie Love. Monie wasn’t the first female rapper by any means, although she came to prominence in the late eighties, making her an early pioneer. I would argue that few debut albums start off as strongly as Down to Earth did, because both Monie in the Middle and It’s a Shame are classic, classic hiphop tracks that everyone should know. Included as a bonus here is the video of Queen Latifah’s Ladies First, which came out before Monie’s album did and was thus the first place where most people actually heard her music.
I’m not going to point out how the lyrics in Monie’s guest verse blow Latifah’s rapping out of the water, because that would be rude. I’ll let you watch it, and realize that for yourself.
Have a video!:
Previous A to Z post
Next A to Z post (dead link until post is up)
Discover more from Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 
Reblogged this on rennydiokno.com.
LikeLike
I’d just remembered you were doing this.
I’ve only been able to catch a few of these, so I’m not quite sure how you’re choosing your artists, but (IMHO) MC Lyte, Missy Elliot (tied), Monie Love, Nicki Minaj. And you’re right, Monie Love killed her verse.
I’m going to go back and read the ones I missed, and I’m looking forward to the new ones.
LikeLiked by 1 person
One of those is still coming. 🙂
LikeLike
OMG you went way back! I feel totally out of the loop because the name Monie Love wasn’t familiar…until you mentioned those hit songs. I don’t even need to play those videos to hear the song in my head…”Where she at…in the middle!” LOL. I remember my mom and cousin singing along to those tunes when they were on the radio. The thing that gets me is I cannot believe I didn’t know about her being in Queen Latifah’s Ladies First song. That is interesting.
Love your music theme for April! While I do enjoy a lot of Nicki Minaj’s songs, I would say that Missy Elliott is much more worthy of a mention when highlighting female MCs because she is multi-talented and thinks outside of the box. There’s no other female artist like her… sorta like how there wasn’t any rappers like Busta Rhymes when he first came out.
Where’s Yo-Yo in all of this? She was just as hot as MC Lyte and Queen Latifah in terms of holding her own in the music realm. Just sayin….
Cheers!
~Nicole
A-to-Z Challenge CO-HOST
The Madlab Post
LikeLike
Be patient. 🙂
LikeLike
I was a little saddened not to see Lupe Fiasco or Kid Cudi, but you mentioned Murs so all is well again.
LikeLike
I like both of them a lot– particularly Cudi– but I mostly know their music from Pandora, and don’t own any full-length albums. I really ought to fix that.
LikeLike
Loved “It’s a Shame”
LikeLike
Hell yeah.
LikeLike