SPOILER ALERT: This is not a movie review. However, if you haven't yet seen "Roxanne Roxanne," the biopic about pioneering female emcee Roxanne Shante, then you might want to log off right now.
With that said, if you remember when you first heard the song "Roxanne's Revenge" on the radio and the feeling that it inspired, please keep reading because you're probably the right person to help answer a few questions that came to me while I watched the new movie.
Let me first start by saying that for months I swore the person rapping "Roxanne's Revenge" was a little boy. As a fifth grader, I couldn't comprehend that a girl could rap. But I knew the song was fire and I went to the Sam Goody on 97th and Broadway to cop the vinyl single by paying for it in quarters -- my arcade money. That's how special that song was and still is to me.
I attended a panel discussion just the other week and heard her discuss some of the challenges she faced growing up, all of which was news to me. So to say that I learned a lot about her life watching the new movie is an understatement.
Roxanne Shante says the globalization and appropriation of rap actually helped save hiphop #BeExpoPhilly pic.twitter.com/elz7m6ZLqd— Bruce Wright (@bctw) March 17, 2018
But, I do wonder how true some of it really is.
Maybe all of this has already been well-documented, but I haven't read any of this, and so I need some answers to a few questions.
Here they are, in no certain order:
1. For starters, did Marley Marl really jerk her and steal her tour money and kick her off the tour like they showed in the movie? If so, that is crazy foul, especially for the man who many people believe is the greatest Hiphop producer of all time.
2) Did Shante really knock out "Roxanne's Revenge" as we know it in one take?
3. After Marley jerked her, taking her records and everything, Biz Markie steps in and offers to back her up0 with his human beat box, which Shante acts like is a surprise that he can do. They go on to take the stage and end up making Hiphop history with their classic performance that was captured on video in 1986.
4. In the scenes MC Shan was in, he almost seems like an afterthought when in reality at the time he had the rap game on lock with "The Bridge" and his ongoing battle with Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One, who once famously rapped "Roxanne Shante is only good for steady fucking!" Either way, Shan comes off like a nice, caring guy in the movie.
5. OK, I know Queensbridge is fertile ground when it comes to birthing Hiphop legends, but are the two scenes featuring a young Nas really accurate? In one scene, a young Nasir Jones without a rap name humbly asks Roxanne to hear him rhyme, but when he's put on the spot, he couldn't muster up anything anything beyond a "Yo" and some nervous b-boy posturing. To that, Roxanne warns him she will "fuck you up" the next time she sees him and he's not ready to kick a hot 16.
Fast forward toward the end of the movie, and a more mature-but-still-very-young-looking Nas spits hot fire on Roxanne's request, making the movie's protagonist very happy.
(Reminds me a bit of the scene in "Belly" where a young boy acts out the lyrics from Nas' "One Love.")
But lost in the mix is the fact that God's Son's stage name at the time was Nasty Nas, a moniker under which he recorded his first professional rhyme on Main Source's "Live At The BBQ" and subsequent songs with MC Serch and others. Why didn't they use that name in the movie?
Would love to hear what all three of my readers think about this.
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