MC Lyte Interview

Door Ryan Clus 26-11-2008
Foto's: Auke van der Hoek

Ik ben weer verliefd. De ‘Queen of Hiphop’, MC Lyte, stond afgelopen zaterdag voor een dikke, vette, nostalgische hiphopshow in de Amsterdamse Melkweg. Samen met haar DJ, drummer en hypeman nam MC Lyte een goedgevulde Melkweg mee terug in de tijd, toen hiphop nog een ware cultuur was. Mijn waardering voor Lyte bleef ook na de uitstekende show stijgen, toen ik eindelijk de eer had om de legendarische dame een aantal vragen te stellen. Backstage wachtte namelijk een lief, klein, goedgehumeurd vrouwtje om House of Hiphop te woord te staan. Toch een heel ander beeld dan wat ik aan de hand van haar teksten in mijn hoofd had opgebouwd. Het resultaat van het doorgebrachte kwartiertje met MC Lyte is een goed gesprek over het fenomeen Back to Lyte, DJ Premier, vrouwen in hiphop en nog veel meer. Check it out!

How does it feel to be back in Amsterdam?

It feels great! I heard about these new laws, they tryin’ to get rid of the smokeshops?

Nah, that’s only the ones close to the schools, within 250 meters. You’ll still be able to get some...

Well I don’t smoke, I just felt for you, haha.

Allright then. Back to Lyte is your upcoming album...

No. Back to Lyte is an album that I don’t really know will ever see the light of day. It’s one of those albums that we did just for the fun of it. It was a throwback to the days. Wonder Years was the first track on that. The problem with Back to Lyte is that it has quite a few samples. Untill the producers, from K.G., K-Cee and Giz from the Audio Two, decide that they want to do the tracks and omit those samples, we’ll probably never release it. Untill I’m dead and somebody will want to pay for it...

What about a mixtape project? Then you could get rid of the clearances.

Then you give the song away, but I don’t feel like that like that’s fair to the people who we sampled from. So, it will just chill.

So instead of Back to Lyte you released Almost September?

Well, that’s two different projects alltogether. Back to Lyte is just an MC Lyte project, and Almost September is a group. It’s myself and two guys, Whitey who sings and Jared Lee who raps. They both produce all of the music.

How did you meet?

I went into the studio to do some stuff with Macy Gray. The next day we went to cut it, and she was running late. So I wound up listening to some stuff they had going on, and we recorded Beautiful that night, which was the first song we ever recorded. Then we went on to record more and more. We have thirty-something songs, but the EP that’s out now, since october 31st, we call it the ‘Almost September Starter-Kit’. You know, it’s like to whet your whistle. So you can see what were really about, the sound that we have and what we’re capable of.

And you exclusively dropped it on iTunes?

No, we have a record company of our own, called One. We did the deal with Sony BMG.

You’ve also released some loose tracks, like Get Lyte, on iTunes. Will those be on any albums?

Get Lyte is also from Back to Lyte. That’s from a young producer in Harlem called Black the Beast. He does this music that they call ‘light music’. It’s music that keeps the kids dancing and light on their feet.

Wonder Years is one of my favorite tracks of the last couple of years. It has like this oldschool feel to it. Where did yiy get the idea for the track? Did you want to bring the oldschool back to hiphop?

Uhm, I didn’t. I actually asked Premier for a beat and that’s what he gave me, haha. It’s as simple as that. I don’t think I would’ve turned down any track from him. So when I heard it, he just told me what I needed to speak about, and the first words that came out was ‘the wonder years’.

Do you have any plans on working with him in the future? I think there’s definetely chemisty there.

You know what, I’ve been begging that dude for beats since he gave me that one! He’s a busy guy. He promised me three tracks before he left for Europe about a month ago and I still don’t have them, so I gotta keep, you know, ‘COME ON!!!’

Will there be any kind of celebration to 20 years of Lyte as a Rock? Some kind of ‘best of’ or ‘exclusive remixes’. De La is doing it with 3 Feet High and Rising right now.

Yeah, they also did a Best Of maybe two years ago? But me and one of my partners over there (wijst naar de andere kant van de kamer) have been talking about remixing some things which could be really dope. Like remixing some of the older stuff, adding a verse, letting some other MC’s get on ‘em, that kind of thing.

You’ve been making music for a really long time, while most artist nowadays seem to have no more inspiration or creativity after three of four LP’s. What motivates you to keep on making music?

I think it’s performing. You get out there, you perform and you talk with the people, and the people talk to you, and you kinda figute out what’s missing, you know?. I also started DJ’ing, so I started really looking for music that makes the difference. I mean, as a DJ, it’s really rough to get music that sounds different from everything else. So when I’m listening to all this music that record pools are sending me, I’m like ‘oh yeah ok that one sounds like that one’, and then all of a sudden you hit upon someting that’s like ‘aaaw yeah that’s way different’. So I already know, the next time I go into record, I already have a better gage, musically, for what sets the tone from not being like everything else.

When did you started DJ’ing?

Uhm, about a year and half ago.

Are you thinking about producing as well?

Naaaaaw haven’t moved to that yet, haha.

Ah well, you’ll get there.

Yeah yeah, one day....

You debuted in the same year as Audio Two. Were you surprised they didn’t get the same attention that you did? You know, since you got put on by them...

You know, I didn’t really think about it. I didnt’ even think like ‘Oh look, I’m doing it and they’re not’. Because they were still producing me. It probably didn’t hit me untill well after they had moved on to Rick Rubin’s label, and I was like ‘aw ok, they’re really moving over there’. I think it’s all a matter of promotion and money. They made a better deal over there.

You’ve been an independent artist for quite a while now. Is that a big difference from being a part of major label?

Absolutely. It has its pro’s and it’s cons. The pro’s are that I get to do what I want and appear on anybody’s record. I can give songs to video games, to movies, to soundtracks, television shows, you know, I’m able to get out there and really make it work for me. However, you don’t have a big company to lean back on with promotion or marketing. But what it does do, it sets me in motion to get out there and promote myself. So in this way, I keep in touch with the people. When you have a big machine like that, you know, it’s hard to know the people that are really making the record happen.

You’ve talked about the postition of the female in hiphop, a male-dominated business. Now, in 2008, are you happy with that position?

Well, there are so many, their just not with major recordlables. You could go on Myspace and find a trillion of ‘em, but they just don’t have the major promotion or marketing to back them. But they certainly excist. I just find it eerie that twenty years ago I sparked it off, and I’m still doing it. I done seen a whole lot come........whole lot go.

You being a rolemodel for female MC’s, have you never had the idea of....

Absolutely! I have a group called the ‘Hiphop Sisters’ on Myspace. We do monthly conference calls, where women may have questions about copyrighting, or about studio’s, or looking for other female producers. It’s like a networking system.

In one of your latest blogs I read you’re very proud of hiphop for what it can do for the community, considering the election of Obama. Do you think that ‘gift’ hiphop has will grow as it gets more commercial?

You know, I think hiphop has gotten as commercial as it can get. I think it’s really bottomed out with commerciality. And I think it’s people that’s are really into hiphop are gonna support it. Those new guys, who are socially conscious, who don’t rhyme about jewelry, cars and other thing they have in their possession, we’re gonna see more of that on the rise. I mean that’s my personal opinion I don’t know if its true...

Hell, I agree. You’ve worked with a lot of legends, like KRS-One, Common and so on. Do you have any more artist on your wishlist?

Well, I think I got the chance to work with a lot of them on Almost September. I worked with KRS again, worked with Big Daddy Kane, Sleepy Brown, Macy Gray, India Arie. Even within the conception of Almost September I wanted to be on the same tour as India Arie. I wanted to be on the same bill as Macy Gray. So we were able to get that sound, because these guys (Almost September) actually produced for them. So it was really easy to make happen. Hmm, if I had to say somebody that I wanted to work with? Well we have a song now that we really want Mariah Carey to sing on. We got our fingers crossed and prayers in the air...

Good luck...

Thank you!

Last thing, if you would like to give House of Hiphop a shoutout, or just say something to the fans!

Yeah, thank you very much for the continued support over the years. I’m happy we were able to come to Amsterdam and do a little something for the people. Hopefullym, Almost September will be back to perform a more mature hiphop sound. I think we’ll do really well in this area with the people’s support. So thank you.

Big ups naar Deams & Live and Legendary