Roxanne Shante

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Roxanne Shanté (born Lolita Shanté Gooden on November 9, 1969) is an American hip hop vocalist pioneer. She was born in Queens, New York and grew up in the Queensbridge Projects.

She rose to prominence due to her hit "Roxanne's Revenge", which sold over 250,000 copies in the New York area alone. Her career began unusually, at the age of 14, when she encountered three men talking about UTFO, who had recently canceled their performance at a show they were performing. Shanté offered to record an answer to UTFO's recent hit "Roxanne, Roxanne", which was about a woman who would not notice them. The men agreed and the result was "Roxanne's Revenge", a confrontational and profane song that made her a star within the hip-hop community and sparked the Roxanne Wars. Most of her tracks were produced by Marley Marl, one of hip hop music's most influential producers, with the exception of several songs on Shanté’s last album, 1992’s The Bitch is Back.

As an MC, Shanté had an extraordinary ability to spontaneously freestyle (improvise) entire songs. "Roxanne’s Revenge" is an example of this; it was reportedly written and recorded at the same time—in one take. However, the original version of the song was rerecorded using a slightly different backing track with less profanity after UTFO sued Marley Marl and Shanté over the use of the "Roxanne, Roxanne" backing track. People are most familiar with this version, which appears on the original 12-inch single released in 1984 (with the original version on the reverse side).

In 1990 (see 1990 in music), she and Rick James had a hit with "Loosey's Rap". In 2000 (see 2000 in music) she collaborated with UK producer Mekon on the track "What's Going On?". She also took part in a series of Sprite commercials in the late 1990s while mentoring young female hip-hop artists.

At the age of 18, after several discrepancies with her royalties, two albums, pay-cuts, and a pregnancy, Roxanne Shanté began to call it quits, which became finalized at the age of 25, in spite of the occasional guest appearance on other hip-hop artists’ records since then.

After earning a Ph.D. in psychology, she returned to Queens, New York, where she is a psychologist with a successful practice. She is a vegan, is married, and has one son.

Selected discography

Singles:

"Roxanne’s Revenge" (1984)
"Queen of Rox" (1985)
"Runaway" (1985)
"Bite This" (1985)
"Have a Nice Day" (1987)
"Live on Stage" (1989)
"Big Mama" (1992)

Albums:

Bad Sister (1989)
The Bitch is Back (1992)

Roxanne Shante

Selected discography

See also