If asked to make a list of the greatest female MCs, it probably wouldn’t take long for you to fire off names like Queen Latifah, Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliot and MC Lyte. But you may not know that long before any of them ever touched a mic, there was MC Sha-Rock. She is an original member of Sugar Hill’s Funky 4 + 1 and the first female MC.
The Bronx native is an undisputed pioneer in the game. Artists like DMC and MC Lyte have called her an influence. And she’s getting ready to celebrate the culture on its 50th anniversary at the 2023 Rock The Bells Festival at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, NY, on August 5. The legendary lineup will bring together some of the most respected names in the game, including Big Daddy Kane, De La Soul, Cold Crush Brothers and Slick Rick. So we couldn’t wait to catch up with MC Sha-Rock to talk about the culture she helped create.
Sha-Rock has been a part of hip-hop culture from the beginning. As a teenager growing up in the crime-ridden New York City of the 70s, she says rhyming and breakdancing provided a safe, creative outlet.
“It started in the 1970s. We used to battle against Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five,” she said. “I became a nomadic B-girl in 1976 and traveled around the Bronx to listen to the different breakbeats the DJs played.”
Sha-Rock got her first record deal in 1979 and with the Funky 4 +1, she recorded tracks like “Rappin’ and Rocking the House” and “That’s the Joint.” Before long, the group’s popularity expanded beyond the Bronx as they toured with groups like Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five and The Sugarhill Gang. And in 1981, the Funky 4 +1 made history as the first rap group to perform on national television when Deborah Harry of Blondie invited them to perform “That’s the Joint” on Saturday Night Live.
Forty years after that performance, Sha-Rock says she is proud to be a part of creating a culture that has stood the test of time.
“We were teenagers with little to no resources. We were happy to get people to pay $2 to get into our parties and hear us rhyme. But we helped create a billion dollar business,” she said. “We didn’t have a blueprint or a college course to teach us how to do this. We were just doing something we loved.”
But looking to the future, Sha-Rock wants to make sure people continue to honor every aspect of hip-hop culture, including DJs, B-boys and girls and graffiti artists.
“MCing is just one of the elements of hip-hop culture. I celebrate them all, because you can’t have one without the other,” she said.
And she thanks LL Cool J for keeping hip-hop’s legacy alive with the festival and his Rock the Bells radio station.
“He is leading the way and ensuring that all of the elements of hip hop culture are being celebrated. I rock with him because he reached back to myself and Grandmaster Cas to have us on his station to talk about the history and the culture. I’m proud to be here today to see how hip-hop has evolved to where it is now.”