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UR005 – MC Lyte (YO! Unplugged & Spoken Word II) [1991 & 1994]
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MC Lyte joins the show to discuss playing MTV Unplugged twice: first on the 1991 YO! Unplugged hip-hop show (alongside A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and LL Cool J) and then on the second Spoken Word episode from 1994. Tune in to hear her reminisce about playing “Cappuccino” with a live band (and how that informed some of the songs on her next album), as well as how validating the experience of publicly performing her poem “An Open Letter to My Biological Father” was for someone who had been writing poetry since she was a kid.
If you dig the show, want to share your own Unplugged memories, ask a question, request a show topic, or connect with the pod for any reason, there are a couple ways you can get in touch:
- You can email me at unpluggedrevisited@gmail.com,
- You can reach out on twitter at @unplugged_pod,
- You can leave a voicemail (that’ll maybe get played on the show) by dialing 234-REVISIT (234-738-4748)
Recommended![UR014: Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) [1996 MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/43cbefc3-777c-4d93-9915-92abd82876d2.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction to Unplugged Revisited
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Unplugged. Unplugged. Unplugged.
00:00:14
Speaker
greetings and salutations welcome back to Unplugged. revisited the podcast that celebrates critiques and dives deep into the last three and a half decades of mtv Unplugged. i'm your host music journalist pop culture anthropologist and unplugged obsessive will hodge I'm excited to jump right into this week's show because there's no two ways
MC Lyte's Hip-Hop Legacy
00:00:32
Speaker
about it friends. My guest today is legit hip hop royalty. She's a trailblazer, barrier breaker, history maker, and two time unplugged stage taker. I'm incredibly excited to share with you my unplugged revisited chat with MC Lyte.
00:00:53
Speaker
Now, I can be as guilty as the next music journalist about hyperbolically gassing up an artist that I've been listening to since I was a kid. But with the creative icon, the caliber of MC Lyte, there's no need to gild the lily because the facts the superlatives, the legacy, and of course the art itself does all the heavy lifting for you. For just a couple examples of her hip-hop pioneer bonafides, here's a super short, super condensed list of some of the major firsts on Light's creative resume. She was the first solo female rapper to release a full-length album, with 1988's Light as a Rock, a cassette that had my whole elementary school, and especially Mrs. Wells' second grade class, going crazy heading into summer break.
00:01:33
Speaker
She was the first solo female rapper to appear on the Billboard 200 albums chart. That was her second record, 1989's Eyes on This, which was also a huge hit throughout my school. She was the first solo female rapper to play at Carnegie Hall. During a 1990 AIDS benefit concert. She was the first solo female rapper to land a gold certified single and the first solo female rapper to be nominated for a Grammy.
Personal Reflections on MC Lyte
00:01:57
Speaker
Both of those were for her 1993 chart topping hit Roughneck.
00:02:10
Speaker
There are many reasons I'm excited to have her on the show today. Like I said up top, she's legit hip hop royalty. Growing up, her first two albums were Staples in my elementary school and at my local roller rink. r ip just sparkles off highway eighty five in riverdale And in middle school, I got one of my longest in-school detentions for singing Roughneck during lunch when I didn't know that one of my teachers had walked up behind us. But most importantly, I'm so glad she was willing to chat about her connection to MTV Unplugged because not only did she appear on the show twice, but both of her episodes are two of my personal favorite Unplugged experiments.
00:02:42
Speaker
The Yo Unplugged collaboration show with Yo MTV Raps from 1991 and the second spoken word episode that aired in 1994. I won't bore you with my praise slash critique of how Unplugged absolutely nailed the acoustic hip hop and spoken word shows right out of the gate and then only returned to the magic just a scant few times.
00:03:02
Speaker
But if you want to hear me really go in on that, feel free to check out my introductory trio of explainer episodes covering the entire 35 year run of MTV Unplugged where my Please Give Us More Hip Hop shows whining is a consistent runner throughout.
00:03:18
Speaker
If you listen to my last episode, the one with Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs, you're already familiar with my process of setting up the artist's discussion with what I'm calling the intersection. A sort of bring everybody up to speed preamble that highlights both story threads, where the artist was at in their career and where Unplugged was at in its run when the two
Pioneering Singles and Albums
00:03:38
Speaker
converged. Each Unplugged episode had its own unique flavor that was inextricably informed by what exact elements the artist and the show were both working with at the precise moment their paths crossed. So let's get into this week's intersection.
00:03:52
Speaker
It's admittedly a fool's errand to try and accurately summarize M.C. Light's monumental impact on hip-hop with just a couple year-over-year bullet points. But for today's purposes, I'd like to quickly broad-stroke her rise to hip-hop ascendancy for anyone who didn't experience it in real time. Let's kick it off in late 1987 with the release of Light's debut single, I Cram to Understand You.
00:04:24
Speaker
The song is a surprisingly seasoned social commentary on the 1980s crack epidemic, cleverly packaged within a fictional personal narrative, which Light first wrote as a 12-year-old and recorded at only 16. Along with her soon-to-be signature voice and in-your-face flow, right out of the gate, even as just a teenager, Light set the groundwork for being a talented wordsmith who would always have a lot to say about topical themes like social consciousness, independence, misogyny, sexism, racism, drugs, violence, addiction, and more. The single was released under the first priority imprint, run by Nat Robinson, and it led to her getting an album deal with Atlantic Records, who released her debut full-length record, Light as a Rock, in the spring of 88. As I already mentioned, Light as a Rock holds the distinction of being the first full-length album released by a solo female rapper, a true pioneering milestone.
00:05:15
Speaker
But Light has also always been quick to credit the female MCs who came before her. For example, here she is talking to the griot about that last year. The first woman was, of course, Shah Rock from the Funky 4 Plus one more. But when I heard her voice, it was like, oh, this is great. She's doing it for the women. There were many women after that. Of course, there were sequenced, Sparky Dee and Sweet Tea and Roxanne Chante and the real Roxanne.
00:05:40
Speaker
But when I heard Salt and Pepper, I said, oh, I can do it. Light as a Rock produced three singles, all still revered as
Collaborations and Key Achievements
00:05:48
Speaker
hip-hop classics. 10% Discs, Paper Thin, and Light as a Rock.
00:06:03
Speaker
Her forthright lyricism earned her a simpatico fan and upstart Irish rocker Sinead O'Connor, who asked Light to appear on the remix of her revolutionary single, I Want Your Hands On Me, from O'Connor's debut album, The Lion and the Cobra. Light even appeared in the official music video for the track.
00:06:34
Speaker
Speaking of music videos, in 88 she also made a brief cameo in Public Enemy's Night of the Living Baseheads video, playing a news reporter. this is mc light coming live and iup for p ending search for the base says we've come to a new hot yes that's right who Check out the justice and how they run it. The next year, 1989, was a genuinely huge year for Light. First, she appeared on the anti-violence charity single Self-Destruction, which was put together by KRS-1 under the moniker Stop the Violence movement to call for an end to intra-community violence and raise money for the National Urban League.
00:07:14
Speaker
Alongside KRS-1 and Light, the song featured other such golden age of hip-hop luminaries as Public Enemy, Cool Mo D, Boogie Down Productions, Dougie Fresh, Heavy D, Stetsasonic, and others. When the brand new Billboard Hot Rap Singles Chart was launched in March of 89, self-destruction debuted at number one and stayed there for 10 weeks.
00:07:48
Speaker
Second, Light quickly returned to the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart a few months later with the top 20 hit, I'm Not Having It, a safe sex empowerment duet with positive K that originally appeared on the Basement flavor compilation put out by her first priority label imprint.
00:08:10
Speaker
1989 also saw the release of her sophomore follow-up record, Eyes on This, which charted on the Billboard 200, another solo female rapper first, and generated three top 10 hits, Stop, Look, Listen, Cappuccino, more on that one in a minute, and lead single Cha-Cha-Cha, which was her first number one on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart and a song that 25 years later, she would perform at the White House for President Obama, celebrating 50 years of the National Endowment for the Arts.
00:08:44
Speaker
Also, quick note on the artwork for Eyes on This. If you want a quick snapshot of late 80s New York hip hop, this picture of light in an oversized white suit leaned between two Porsche Carreras parked on the Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier backdropped by the World Trade Center-anchored New York skyline is quintessential late 80s New York hip hop at its finest.
Notable Unplugged Performances
00:09:05
Speaker
Throughout 1990, Light performed at Carnegie Hall, played Arsenio in Showtime at the Apollo, and even showed up on Sinbad's novelty comedy song, I Ain't Lion, from the comedy record attached to his HBO special, Brain Damage.
00:09:29
Speaker
The following year, 1991, is when she first crossed paths with MTV Unplugged. mtv unplugged tonight at eight thirty on tv on mtv Now, 1991 was only Unplugged's second season, and the show was coming off a very dynamic debut year in which it managed to successfully change formats mid-season. Go back and listen to my first episode if you want the whole beat-by-beat story, but the cliff notes is that the show basically started off with a laid-back, two-artist, song-swap format facilitated by host Jules Scheer, but quickly pivoted to the single-artist showcase it became known for.
00:10:08
Speaker
The first season is heavily marked by traditional rock acts. You know, Aerosmith, Poison, Allman Brothers, bands like that. And the show seemed to really want to try and broaden its genre lens for its second season. For example, they brought in the new wave jazz hybridizations of Elvis Costello and Sting and college rock radio favorites like The Cure and REM. But most notably though, the second season featured the Unplugged team partnering with the Yo! MTV Raps team to create one of the show's most ferocious top tier episodes.
00:10:37
Speaker
welcome to the face your The multi-artist Yo Unplugged Ensemble episode featuring MC Light, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and LL Cool J, all backed by the jazz fusion funk band Pops Cool Love on acoustic bass, piano, drums, bongos, and two acoustic guitars. Or as Kurt Loder so eloquently summed it up, rap goes acoustic on mtv's unpug And just as a cool aside, because it's fun to dream up which artists may or may not have crossed paths during Unplugged's multi-episode, same-day filming sessions, the Yo Unplugged show was shot on the same day as the REM one. And if I ever get my hands on a time machine, that's where I'm headed first.
00:11:19
Speaker
Most folks remember the Yo Unplugged episode for LL Cool J's absolutely explosive rendition of Mama Said Knock You Out, and understandably so. It's one of those moments that immediately transcended the bounds of television to become an instantly iconic pop-cultural moment. However, I think each performance was uniquely cool and really helped to underscore the inherent musicality of hip-hop that many of the genre's bad-faith detractors were trying to disparage throughout the 80s and 90s.
00:11:45
Speaker
Well, rap is not music, for one thing. I mean, it isn't music. You know, it's it's talking.
00:11:54
Speaker
The episode smartly kicked off with a Tribe Called Quest doing Can I Kick It, an incredibly clever choice to immediately draw in any of the more rock-minded viewers who might not have been familiar with Tribe, but who would have immediately clocked the baseline of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild side that serves as the song's foundational sample. Yo, what's up? You got chillin'?
00:12:15
Speaker
Y'all chilling? Yo, when I say can I kick it, I want y'all to say yes, you can. You understand? Now here come the beat. One, two, three. It's like this, y'all.
00:12:28
Speaker
Even without all of the ornamental samples that spice up the original album version, like the organ and horns from Lonnie Smith's Spinning Wheel, or the slide guitar from Dr. Buzzard's Sun Shower, the unplugged version of Can I Kick It beautifully pares the song down to its bass musical grooves for Q-Tip, Fife, and Ali to rap over.
00:12:46
Speaker
The same phenomenal reinvention happened with both De La Soul and LL as well. De La delivered Ring Ring Ring by tastefully spotlighting the bass groove sample from the Whatnot's 1981 single, Help Is On The Way, which sounds like this on the Whatnot's original.
00:13:07
Speaker
And this on De La's Unplugged version.
00:13:22
Speaker
LL managed to successfully pull it off twice, first slinking out the musical phrasing of Jingling Baby from this… to this…
00:13:48
Speaker
He then amped the live acoustic sample of Sly and the Family Stone's trip to your heart into the stratosphere, at times singing into two mics at once, and proving that quote unquote acoustic music need not be chilled or restrained by any measure.
00:14:12
Speaker
And then, of course, there's MC Lyte having an absolute blast performing cappuccino, the top 10 charting third single from her second album, Eyes on This. The song's lyrical content is another example of Lyte's anti-drug, anti-violence creative messaging, and its musical hook is anchored around the baseline of the Blackbird's 1974 album cut, Spaced Out. Here's how it sounds on their sophomore record, Flying Start.
00:14:44
Speaker
how it's sampled on Light's album version of Cappuccino, and how it was brought forward for the acoustic live band unplugged version of Cappuccino.
00:15:09
Speaker
If her megawatt smile wasn't enough of a giveaway, Light was having so much fun during her unplugged performance that towards the end of the song, she even started playfully imitating the cutbacks and scratching she was so used to hearing when playing with the DJ.
00:15:36
Speaker
And here she is from an old MTV news clip talking about rehearsing for Unplugged with Pop's Cool Love. During rehearsal, you know, we go in and tell them where we want it to drop, where we want it to come in, you know, ah jazz it up a little bit different from the regular track. When reviews of the Yo Unplugged show started rolling in, Light was frequently mentioned as one of the night's standout moments. Entertainment Weekly wrote, MC Light performed her song Cappuccino like a rapping Aretha Franklin. b Light brought out the soul in her lyrics. And Newsday said, light was especially good she seemed to get caught up in the spontaneity of the show and was on the verge of bursting into a spirited improvisation when the song endeded
00:16:15
Speaker
When legendary magazine The Source put out their 1991 hip hop year in review edition, they praised Light for being the only female MC to rip live with Quest, De La Soul, and L.O. Cool J on MTV Unplugged. The dopest female that you heard thus far could always hang with the fellas, hard.
Spoken Word and Poetic Roots
00:16:32
Speaker
The second time Light appeared on MTV Unplugged was in 1994 during the second Spoken Word Poetry episode, which followed on the successes of the first Spoken Word episode from the year prior. the beats are back step into mtv's coffee house for a spoken word special edition of Unplugged, the rebirth of poetry. That one had featured the phenomenal Maggie S. Stepp doing the stupid jerk I'm obsessed with, Henry Rollins' tongue-in-cheek Ode to MTV Unplugged, and Reggie Gaines' topical social commentary piece, Please Don't Take Myer Jordan's. they was cuted white bright and blind in my eyes
00:17:08
Speaker
the red emma michael looked as if it could fly not one spot of dirt the airs were brand new have my pistol knew just what to do For that first spoken word unplugged in 1993, they actually invited a dozen poets, but only had time to air eight of the performances.
00:17:26
Speaker
To alleviate any poets getting missed the second time around, the 94 spoken word featured 14 poets spread across two episodes. The whole thing took place in mid-April 94 during a three-day unplugged filming session that found the poets sandwiched between performances by Tony Bennett and Lenny Kravitz. Alongside heavy hitters like Maggie Estep, Jim Carroll, Eric Bagosian, and the legendary Gil Scott Herron, MC Light was invited to perform a personal poem she titled, An Open Letter to My Biological Father.
00:17:56
Speaker
Now, a lot had transpired in Light's career between unplugged appearances. Just a couple months after the 91 Yo Unplugged show aired, she released her third album, Act Like You Know, which featured back to back top 5 hits, When in Love and Poor Georgie, which became her second number one on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart and is possibly my personal favorite song of hers. But please don't make me pick just one.
00:18:28
Speaker
In 92, she contributed the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis produced top 20 hit Ice Cream Dream to the Platinum Selling Mo Money soundtrack.
00:18:44
Speaker
And in 93, she released her fourth record, Ain't No Other, which featured her Grammy-nominated gold-selling hit single, Roughnet.
00:19:05
Speaker
In early 94, just a few months prior to her appearing on the second Spoken Word Unplugged episode, Light was also on a handful of shows during the Free Your Mind Spoken Word Tour that sprung up out of the buzz following the first Spoken Word Unplugged episode in 93.
00:19:20
Speaker
It ain't rough, it ain't right And if you ain't right, well then it's room for the light john s hall watch mtv for detail The tour was co-headlined by Maggie Estep and Reggie Gaines and featured special appearances by artists like Light, Speech of Arrested Development, and Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. As you'll hear during our interview, Light doesn't exactly have any specific memories of the Free Your Mind spoken word tour, but I did find a couple old newspaper articles that verify she was present, including one from the Los Angeles Times and one from the Roanoke Times that even included quotes from her tour stop at Virginia Tech.
00:19:55
Speaker
Who says print is dead? Only the world. Just a few months after that tour is when Unplugged filmed their second and third spoken word episodes. While I sadly don't have any audio of Light's Unplugged poem, an open letter to my biological father that I can include here, I still wanted to highlight some of her poetry so that you can experience just a taste of her monumental poetic talents outside of a musical performance. First, here's a little bit of her incredible poem, I Was Born, from a 2005 episode of Deaf Poetry Jam. If I vanished would anybody remember me? 23 having suicidal tendencies? What does it mean when your team don't understand? They green cause you got more cream in your hand. Mad cause I'm hot and I stay on top. I laid the femme fatale brick to hip hop shit. And here's a little bit of her transforming her song Dear John into a spoken word piece during her 2014 White House appearance. The key for some is not to make the same mistakes and fall victim to the chaos the world and wipe your own out. What a waste. And in the face of haste, you discover that it's too late.
Return with 'One of One' Album
00:21:12
Speaker
Just this past September, Light released her first studio album in nine years. Appropriately titled One of One, Light's new album proves the like a fine wine adage as time has only strengthened her iconic voice and whip-smart songwriting to deliver some of her best bars in decades. Her guest list has only gotten better as well, as a trip through One of One's liner notes reveal collaborations with such legends as Stevie Wonder, and
00:21:44
Speaker
Queen Latifah,
00:21:53
Speaker
Big Daddy Kane,
00:22:00
Speaker
And fellow Yo Unplugged alumni Q-Tip, just to name a few.
Interview with MC Lyte
00:22:09
Speaker
In fact, that seems like an appropriate segue to hop into my interview with Light. Here's Q-Tip's introduction of Light from the Yo Unplugged episode to get us into the chat.
00:22:17
Speaker
coming up next right now all the way live to the point of brooklyn rock it's just like a six mile like somebody di it up the anding light Thank you so much for being here on Unplugged Revisited to reminisce about your two incredible appearances on MTV Unplugged. Um, it's like I said, a legit honor to get to speak with hip hop royalty. So thank you for being here today. I appreciate it. You are very welcome. And thank you for the invitation.
00:22:46
Speaker
Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and ah jump right in. 1991, your first Unplugged appearance was on the phenomenal Yo! MTV Raps Unplugged collaboration episode that came pretty early in Unplugged's history during that smaller second season of 91. What are your memories of how you got invited to play the show and and how was the episode pitched to you?
00:23:07
Speaker
I don't remember how I was invited. um As a matter of fact, I don't remember much about it except for what I see on video. Like like if you were to tell me just to ask me, you know what was I wearing? or I couldn't tell you anything.
00:23:24
Speaker
It's only because we have the video to prove that I was actually there. Do I remember? And it wasn't because I was high or drunk or anything. It's just because when I was that young, everything was just moving so quickly. um But I do remember doing Kappa. Did I do cappuccino or poor? gi Yeah, cappuccino. Yeah. You know, OK. Yes, I remember that. um And I just remember it being very different from anything that I had ever done before.
00:23:54
Speaker
And I thought, wow, this is cutting edge. This is so, you know, different to be here with musicians and then also, I think we were in the round.
00:24:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they had the crowd kind of behind you and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, which was very different. um I just it felt good to be included in something that was fresh and new. um Very much like yo MTV raps and some of the other shows. ah Because I had such popular music out at the time, when those shows launched, I was one of the people that they would call yeah to ah to participate. So it just felt good to be at the beginning.
00:24:35
Speaker
And what was that experience like for you hearing sort of the the live acoustic sampling of that spaced out hook, you know, from the Blackbirds that the song is based on? yeah Was that the first time you had performed with a live band like that? Um, I'm not sure if it was the first time. I think I might've done something with the live band at Carnegie Hall or something. It felt, it feels like I did something prior to that.
00:25:00
Speaker
but But nonetheless, it was still special, and it was actually televised, which was a you know big difference in and of itself. um I think what probably um may have had me a little bit uh, intimidated was that there was no big beat to hide behind or even roll alongside with. It was very sparse so that you were able to hear everything. So I had to make sure
00:25:32
Speaker
that I said all of the right words and that I actually said them so that people could understand them. So it was a little, I think a little bit of a challenge if I think back during during that time, at least in my head, I had made it like, oh my God, this is so different. But then once I got into the groove of it, it was cool.
00:25:51
Speaker
I remember seeing um like an MTV news segment that was kind of a little bit behind the scenes of when y'all were doing the rehearsal at s SIR r the day before. Was there like a learning curve or did you kind of click with the band pretty quickly during rehearsal? ah First off, I don't even remember being at SIR.
00:26:11
Speaker
Amazing. I'll send you the video. there we we We do have evidence of that too. I love to see that. I was like, I was at SIR. Okay. from And not to say that I wasn't, because if you're telling me I was there, then I must have been. But I think um at that time, I probably had my mind on staying connected to the percussion.
00:26:35
Speaker
even now, you know when I perform with my in-ears, I make sure that the DJ is turned up above all else because I need to stay connected to the rhythm um that I wrote the song to. Amazing, okay, yeah. yeah well I'm almost sure that was the issue back then. Like, oh my God, okay, I gotta stay right you know in the groove. And I don't even know if we were using in-ears at that point.
00:27:02
Speaker
I'd have to go back and look at the video as well. Probably not. Yeah, I think because because there's definitely times where you can tell you're kind of ah looking at the at the band and like visually vibing with them, you know, instead of in years. Yeah. Okay. The state of hip hop in 91 with that year being such an incredibly expansive year, you know,
00:27:19
Speaker
West Coast had Pox debut and stellar albums from Ice Cube and Digital Underground. Jersey had Queen Latifah, Naughty by Nature, Jeff and Will out in Philly, Ghetto Boys in Houston. um You know, I'm from Atlanta, so Jermaine Dupree, Arrested Development, Rico Wade, they were all on the cusp.
New York Influence on Yo Unplugged
00:27:35
Speaker
But amidst all of that, like nationwide hip-hop scene, What did it mean to you to have the roster of this unplugged hip hop show be so anchored in the New York scene? You from Brooklyn, DeLa from Amityville, LL in Tribe from Queens. How did that feel to be so New York-centric?
00:27:52
Speaker
I don't know that I was aware of it at the time. Now that we're speaking about it, um it just felt like they added me to the right show.
00:28:06
Speaker
yeah yeah um and you know After being in the business for as long as I've been, I love the musicality of hip hop. As a matter of fact, it might have been the impetus to my next album where I wanted to use live instrumentation. I wound up working with Wolf and Epic out in Los Angeles.
00:28:29
Speaker
for songs like Eyes of the Soul and When in Love. yeah Those songs to me had a live feel to them. Even in Eyes of the Soul, I'm there with a band behind me. So that could have been the driving force that inspired me to want to do those, to add that to my show.
00:28:47
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. Very cool. Okay. Before moving on from the 91 show, um, I do have to ask, we we've all seen video evidence of how LL Cool J leveled the place with mama said, knock you out. But what was the experience like actually being in the room while that was happening and and seeing how the crowd was reacting to that?
00:29:07
Speaker
Quite honestly, ah I do not remember, but yeah just from who he is, I know that it had to be spectacular. yeah you know right right yeah And you don't get a talent like his with a song like that in intimate spaces.
00:29:25
Speaker
o So I know that it probably was a lot of power for the room. Yeah, yeah, very true. that That's so true. Okay, well, um if we if we fast forward a few years to your second appearance on MTV Unplugged, in 1994, they did their second and third spoken word episodes and you kicked off the second episode with your poem, Open Letter to My Biological Father.
Poetry and Creative Beginnings
00:29:47
Speaker
um What are your memories of getting asked to be a part of that episode and deciding to share such a vulnerable piece in that setting?
00:29:55
Speaker
i I have no recollection of how I was invited. okay But I can only imagine with a letter to my biological father, um I don't even know what was in it.
00:30:10
Speaker
You know, ah okay so I can only imagine, and this is why, you know, sticking to the truth always works. If it were in the early nineties, he and I were nowhere as close as we are today. me So I probably talked about the times he didn't show up. He's aware of those. He wasn't there, you know? yeah And so.
00:30:37
Speaker
For me, I guess it was one of those moments where I just felt free enough to be vulnerable in front of a crowd of people and, you know, also having it taped to be broadcast.
00:30:52
Speaker
um And with that, it probably provided some sort of freedom or some sort of letting go. So, yeah. Sorry, I don't learn a little more.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah, all good. um While most folks watching that Unplugged would have known you mostly for your music, how did it feel to be able to share your poetry alongside artists like, you know, like legendary Gil Scott Herron was on that episode as well. So, so being able to kind of ah really open up that poetic side of yourself. um What was that experience like for you? ah Look, I always have to go to Well, if I use my Spidey senses, I can go back and say, it probably made me feel very accomplished. And opening the door to poetry in that sense made
00:31:47
Speaker
it all made sense because that's really where I started. you know I wrote poetry as a kid. And so to be able to return there um was somewhat satisfying. Yeah. Yeah. That's very cool. I you know i remember over the years I saw you perform I was born on deaf poetry jam in the mid 2000s. Of course, in 2014, when you performed at the White House, the the beginning of Dear John was was almost more like a poem than than a song the way you you did that. um And you've also released a book of poetry called Just My Take. I was curious, you kind of started getting into it there. When when did you first start writing poetry and and what do you think sparked that specific poetic draw in you?
00:32:32
Speaker
um Well, I started writing poetry probably at about 11 or 12 and it just seemed like the cool thing to do. I don't know if I saw it in a movie or I can't can't really tell you.
00:32:47
Speaker
um how it all began. It could have been poetry from you know Maya Angelou or something that I saw as a kid. Oh, you know what? I think in one of my schools, they promoted writing poetry nice as a means to express yourself.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah. I'm glad I had that that outlet. Right. Absolutely. Okay. um I know the enthusiasm coming out of like the first spoken word that they had done the year prior. They did that free your mind spoken word tour that had ah Reggie Gaines and Maggie S step. I think they were kind of co-headlining, but I've often seen your name as attached to being a part of some of those as well. Like you were a part of that tour. um Do you have any recollection of that? So I think that was,
00:33:34
Speaker
The one article I saw was like maybe February of 94. So even before this episode was recorded, um, you being a part of that for your mind tour, it was like for colleges, I think. Do you have any recollection? that No, but im okay.
00:33:49
Speaker
I might've been a host. I don't remember performing poetry on a tour. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. It might've been just in a hosting scenario. Gotcha. That made sense. Okay, cool. Yeah. I think they said like speech was a part of a couple or a part of a couple and Evan Dando of the Lemonheads. So trying to piece together some of that older stuff as well.
Creating 'One of One' Album
00:34:13
Speaker
Okay. Well, let's, uh, let's move ahead forward to the present day. Let's talk about your brand new album. One of one that, uh, just came out in September, not to quote you back to you, but it does seem like the MC light is back and better than before as if that was possible. Um, it's your first new album in nine years. What made now the right time to, to write and release this new collection of songs?
00:34:36
Speaker
Well, ah Warren Campbell and I, the executive producer, we started working on some music back in 2018, I think before the pandemic. And we weren't in a rush. We were just trying to feel out what we liked, what we didn't, what felt good. um you know Just trying to find a foundation, basically. So we did a bunch of different things before we landed on Woman.
00:35:04
Speaker
And once we landed on Woman, it was like, oh, OK, this is something right here. What else can we do? And so we started to, him specifically, started to think of musical pieces that were in the same family as Woman. We started looking for the cousin to Woman, or the you know those types of things.
00:35:28
Speaker
and so um With the 50th year of hip-hop happening last year and seeing all that there was, you know, L. Q.J. Havin rocked the Bells Festival in New York City, which was sold out. ah The Force Tour, 25,000 to 30,000 people every night across the nation. um I performed at the Barclay Center for ah Liberty um on August 11th, hip-hop's birthday. Yeah, yeah. And then I went up to Sedgwick and hung out with Kerris One and Curtis Blow and all of the guys that were up there. And they had a vigil there where people talked about the first time they met hip-hop as if hip-hop were a person and and what it did for them in their lives. And and I just like, you know what, there's a market here. I think it's, um it would be, ah
00:36:27
Speaker
it wouldn't be my nature to hold back contributing at this pivotal moment in hip hop after the 50th year. So I started recording with more of an aim and more of a purpose than we were in 2018 when we were just having fun.
00:36:46
Speaker
Uh, I love that it's listening through to the album. Like every time, uh, just hearing your voice is very, uh, familiar to me. I think I've been listening to you since like second grade and like 1988, but it's like hearing your voice, hearing you on a track with Queen Latifah, hearing you on a track with salt. It all just feels, it feels very familiar, but it doesn't feel nostalgic. It feels very.
00:37:12
Speaker
fresh, at least to the to the listener. um It's like this celebration of your historical legacy, but also your sort of continuing artistic evolution. And I wondered, you know, that's the listener experience. What does the album actually feel like to, like, what does it represent to you as the creative force behind it? It represents freedom.
00:37:37
Speaker
in the sense where I didn't feel compelled or pressured to talk about anything other than what I wanted to talk about. I didn't feel like, oh, I got to make a song about this, or I can't do that, or i can't I didn't have any guardrails. It just was like, you know what? This is what this music is telling me to say, and I don't mind saying it. Let's go with it. there you go Now, if I had a piece of music, which is not likely to come from Warren Campbell,
00:38:07
Speaker
that would make me feel like, oh, I got to say something that is not in alignment with how it is that I feel as a person in 2024, then I didn't um you know, I didn't take that track. It was like, and we had other people giving tracks from different places and it just didn't prompt me to want to speak about what was important for me to convey to my audience now. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, um, last question about the new album, tell us about the picture of your younger self that's on the cover. What's the, what's the story behind that shot?
00:38:46
Speaker
ah I showed that shot to Warren for something else. I think I just was like, look at this look at this picture. He said, oh, that's the album cover. And I was like, it's the what? He said, we should use that as the album cover. I was like, oh.
00:38:59
Speaker
Okay. And when I asked, I said, what is it about this picture? He said, it's that look in your eye. You look so serious, like you know that you're about to do something that's going to change something. The community, the city, the state, the world, whatever it is, you've got that look in your eye.
00:39:19
Speaker
And I was probably on my way to work at TT's Mexican restaurant. But I do think that picture kind of encapsulates where I was during that time. And that was really focused on what was next. And it looked like um I might have been maybe 15 or 16. I had had my job for a while because I see my earrings that I bought, you know. Oh, there you go.
00:39:50
Speaker
And yeah, it looks like, because of the time of day, it looks like I was on my way to work as opposed to coming home from work. Yeah, okay. So just um just happy that I had my little camera and somebody took the photo for me.
00:40:06
Speaker
There you go. I'm glad, I'm glad you had that picture. And I'm glad he saw that because as soon as I saw the album cover, I was like, Oh, this is great. I'm i'm all in. Okay. but Well, uh, well, last question, just to close things out by bringing it back to unplugged, uh, one more time.
Dream Unplugged Lineup and Closing
00:40:20
Speaker
Um, if you were given the opportunity to build a hip hop unplugged episode today, um, who would you be putting on that roster? Not to put you too much on the spot. Who would you put on that roster? Um, I definitely have Kane. Hmm.
00:40:34
Speaker
I definitely have Rhapsody. Okay, yeah. And I'd like to see Kendrick on that stage. Absolutely. Oh, that's good. With the intimate setting, is something different about when it's not 20,000 people, but it's 200 instead. Right. Right. Yeah. I completely agree. It's one thing seeing him, uh, like completely explode, you know, stadiums, uh, but yeah, the intimate setting. It's one of the coolest things that, that I like about the MTV unplugged experience. So I agree with you that that's a, that's an amazing show. I hope you get to pull that off.
00:41:18
Speaker
Awesome. Very cool. Well, again, thank you so much for your time today and and reminiscing with me a little bit. Have a fantastic rest of your day. I appreciate you. And there we go. That was genuinely such a fun conversation. And my immense thanks goes out to MC Lite for delving back through literal decades of high profile memories to try and dredge up to very specific single piece appearances from a lifetime of groundbreaking history making performances.
00:41:45
Speaker
And by the way, if anyone listening has an old VHS of that second spoken word unplugged that features MC Light's performance, or has any recollection of being at one of those free your mind spoken word tour stops she was on, reach out and let me know. I've been able to uncover a lot of old unplugged ephemera, but so far Light's poem is one that has eluded me since first hearing it on the original broadcast so many years ago. But fingers crossed.
00:42:09
Speaker
If you do happen to have something like that, or if you dig the show, want to share your own unplugged memories, ask a question, request a show topic, or connect with the pod for any reason, you can email me at unpluggedrevisited at gmail dot.com. You can reach out on Twitter, at unplugged underscore pod, or you can leave a voicemail that'll maybe get played on the show by dialing 234-REVISIT. That's 234-738-4748.
00:42:35
Speaker
Alrighty, I'll be back with another show in two weeks, this one featuring my chat with an incredible musician who played cello for one of my DNA-level favorite bands, both on their landmark Unplugged episode as well as on tour with them for a few months before and after. That's probably enough of a hint for you to guess, but if not, just join me again in two weeks for a super fun surprise. As always, please take a moment to follow the pod on your platform of choice so that it'll automatically pop into your feed when it goes live.
00:43:04
Speaker
Until then my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.