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!:

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