A (3:26)

At least.

A (3:28)

I didn't trust the voice I had.

A (3:36)

Today in Snap Judgment. Mic check.

A (3:43)

Two people, two fights. One question. Can you still hear yourself when everything gets loud? My name is Ben Washington, and as Marshall Mathers once said, you better lose yourself in the music. The moment you own it, you better never let it go.

A (4:03)

When you're listening.

A (4:05)

To Snap Judgment.

A (4:17)

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A (5:16)

Now. This story does contain explicit language. Sensitive listeners are advised. Now, we all know that rap beefs have become big business. Everyone wants to weigh in on Kendrick vs Drake, Nicki vs Cardi. All kinds of money thrown into stoking the flames. But what about when you did it simply for the honor of being the best mc? Going home with a few Benjamins in your pocket, knowing you beat the best? Well, snappers, this story takes us back to those days, those early days of hip hop, to when Roxanne Shantae, in the most personal battle that she ever fought, Snap judgment.

B (5:58)

Back then, Roxanne Shantae was Shantae Gooden. She grew up in Queensbridge, New York. This was the late 70s, the dawn of hip hop. Think turntables, break dancing, battle rapping.

C (6:11)

I was young, maybe about eight or nine, and I was like, well, I'm gonna get up in the morning and I don't want to dance. Put on my shoes, and I put on my pants and just did the whole day with it. And before you knew it, I could literally just walk through the house and just say a story about everything I see in the house. It became a second language for me. I started rhyming about everything that we was playing with. Jumping hopscotch, doing rope. I remember leaving out the house and going to the store, and I was rhyming about everything that I had to purchase from the store. And one of my girlfriends was next to me, Katrina, and she was saying, oh, do that again, do that again. Now talk about the ice cream. She's throwing things at me and I'm just rhyming them. And then she started beating on the.

D (6:55)

Wall.

C (6:59)

And I would rhyme to it. And so before you knew it, everyone in the projects, everybody wants to try me. And Trina, she was like, shantae is better than everybody. Like, she was going around telling everybody, and they were like, no, she not. You'd see them come with all of their friends, and I'm sitting there playing Skelly. I'm on the ground, shooting tops. And they'd be like, somebody's here and they want to battle. And be like, what? They want to battle for potato chips, ice cream. And then I'd stand up and then I'd rhyme about whatever it is they had on. Like, you came here with your blue shirt, it got dirt. You're going to get hurt. I'm about to do work.

B (7:35)

Every block had their champ, and Queensbridge was becoming famous for its rap battles. Shantae won every time, and she was so good that by age 11, battle rapping became her side hustle.

C (7:48)

I just started doing them all over the city. We started finding them for $250, $100, $1,500. So I'm thinking, great, you know, because we coming from a fixed income, I could use that money so I can go and get school clothes and take care of my sisters and stuff like that.

C (8:05)

So years later, my mom was going through a lot at the time, and I wound up in foster care system. And I was in Bushwick Girls group home. And then I was in Hegeman. I had came home from Hegemon and was helping my mom with my sisters. I was 14. And I remember the first thing I wanted to do was laundry. So I'm taking the laundry down the laundromat. And it just so happens that DJ Molly Moll, one of the greatest hip hop producers, lived right above the laundry.

C (8:40)

And he's calling me out the window and he's like, yo, yo. And I look up and I'm like, what? And he's like, listen, come to my house because I need you to do a freestyle. Because I heard you good. I said, you didn't hear? I was good? You Know I'm good. And I said, so you work at the Sergio Valente Jean factory. Let me get some jeans for me and my sisters. And he was like, okay, what kind? I was like, Westerns. And he said, all right. And so I said, okay, I'll see you in a few minutes. Let me just put these clothes in the laundromat. So I put them in there, and I only had enough for 10 minutes in the dryer. I ran up to his house. I only got 10 minutes. He's like, okay, this is the beat I'm gonna play. And he played the big beat.

C (9:24)

That was the underlining beat for Roxanne. Roxanne.

C (9:30)

So there was this song on the radio called Roxanne Roxanne that was done by utfo and it was about a girl named Roxanne who didn't want to talk to them and thought she was too good for them and stood them up. So I said, okay, I'm going to be Roxanne from UTFO Song.

B (9:47)

And that was the moment that Shantae Gooden became Roxanne Shantae.

C (9:54)

And he put the beat on.

C (9:58)

And then I started off. Well, my name is Roxanne don't you know I just a cold rocket party do this show I said, I met these three guys and you know it's.

D (10:06)

True Let me tell you and explain them all to you I met this dude with the name of a hat I didn't even walk away I didn't.

C (10:13)

Give him no rat but then he.

D (10:14)

Got real mad and he got a little tired if he wasn't for me.

C (10:17)

And then I went back downstairs and did my laundry and didn't think about it anymore.

C (10:28)

And then about 1 o' clock in the morning, the phone rings. So I'm really feeling like I'm walking on eggshells with my mom and I don't want a lot of noise. So I run and hurry up and get to the phone. And as soon as I pick it up, I hear Trina say, yo, you want to ring? All right. And I hang up. And then she calls back again. I'm like, stop. You're gonna get me in trouble. And she was like, you're on the radio. Your song is on the radio. And I remember unplugging the phone from the wall and sliding down the wall.

C (11:01)

And I get emotional because.

C (11:05)

I think that has a lot to do with.

C (11:09)

How I never felt like a star.

C (11:16)

I had just came back from a group home, and that was because I was out and I was boosting and I was hustling and I'm trying to take care of my family. And I was just a child and I didn't want them to take me again. I didn't want to draw attention.

C (11:33)

So now I sit there and I say, man, I wonder what I sound like on the radio. And then I just went back in the room and laid down.

C (11:47)

Now I'm going to school. And the song becomes super popular.

C (11:58)

Every time you turn the radio on, it's playing, it's playing.

C (12:06)

A manager comes along and says, hey, listen, I'm gonna manage your career. And we're going out on tour.

C (12:16)

And my mom, they bought her a washing machine, some linoleum for the living room, and they gave her $150 for every week that I was on tour. And they're making millions, she has an extra $150 a week. She doesn't have to worry about where I'm at. And because she didn't know anything about the music industry or the music business, she thought that that was okay. And I don't fault her for that. I was never angry with her for that.

C (12:49)

She just didn't know.

C (12:53)

Now I'm on tour for a year. No home address, no nothing. I'm going in clubs and I'm performing at 2, 3 o' clock in the morning. Everybody's around you sniffing cocaine. So now I'm traveling with all these men. The managers is like my father figure. Everybody else is my brothers. So we're a dysfunctional family. We're on the road, we fight together, we eat together, but we travel together and we love each other. That's all I knew. When they told me that I do a show and I'm supposed to split the money with everybody, I believed them.

B (13:30)

Roxanne comes back to New York, she's 15 now, and her manager tells her there's a music convention where they're holding a battle rap contest with the low stakes title, the MC Battle for World Supremacy.

C (13:44)

You were going to be the best battle rapper in the world. The entire world was going to know you were going to get a belt. You were going to have bragging rights for a whole entire year and you were going to get a check. I just always knew I would win because I know that no matter what, I got this battle thing down pat.

B (14:03)

Roxanne had a very specific vision of how she'd use the money she won.

C (14:08)

I just wanted a steak from Beefsteak Charlie's. Like, there was a restaurant downstairs called Beefsteak Charlie's. I wanted to have Me a filet mignon. And I was gonna get me a window seat, and I was gonna eat my steak and my baked potato, and then I was gonna take myself downtown to Delancey Street. I was gonna buy the girls their coats and stuff, and then I was gonna go home. And that was.

C (14:33)

So the battle was at the Marriott Marquis. And I remember seeing people pulling up in their limos. And when I got there by myself, it was almost like going into Grand Central Station back in the day when they used to have the board and you could see when the trains were coming in and out, the board listed.

B (14:51)

The tournament draw the people she'd have to beat to become champion.

C (14:55)

And when I looked up on the board, it was all of these emcees, and these were MCs that I like, MCs that I know and me. This is gonna be a long day.

B (15:06)

The event was held in a banquet hall with the stage.

C (15:09)

The room was packed. Super rockin. Mr. Magic, he was the host. He had a radio show on WBLS called the Rap Attack. Each time he introduced me, he was like, and she's here to dust off another one. We got her right here. Fly girl, Roxanne Shoddy. And I started rhyming.

B (15:30)

It was a blur. Roxanne can't even remember who she faced. In the first battle, the judges scored on a scale of 1 to 10, highest total moves on. Roxanne got her first win with a bunch of tens. But soon she noticed something strange.

C (15:46)

Every time I would sit down, they'd be like, okay, you ready? And I just felt like it was just a constant fight. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

B (15:55)

Roxanne was called up to battle. One rapper after another with no breaks.

C (16:00)

I was wondering if they were going to battle each other, but everyone was there to battle me. I was saying to myself, if all of them have rhymes about me, then they must have known that this was gonna take place. And no one never told me.

C (16:18)

So. Seven emcees in. We're already a few hours into this. I'm still going to. Some of the MCs quit in the middle of the rhymes. They would get so upset. Losing to me was career ending because you can't be this big, strong male rapper and lose to a little girl.

E (16:38)

Our next two contestants, they happen to be both good friends of mine. So let's hear for Fuquan from Stessasonic. Come on, give it up.

C (16:48)

I see Farquan come from the other side of the stage. So I look at him and he Looks at me, he grabs the mic.

C (16:58)

And of course he's coming in like, I'm gonna win this. You not gonna beat me. I see that he's angry, and I know that he's a really good emcee, so it's not gonna be easy.

E (17:09)

My favorite and yours, put your hands together. Welcome the queen of rocks, Fagel, Roxanne Shanti.

C (17:21)

One, two.

D (17:22)

Y' all have to excuse me because I'm very nervous.

C (17:24)

And here goes.

D (17:28)

My rhymes are devastating every word that I speak. And you see this guy here? His raps is weak. He can't come with me.

C (17:34)

So when he first starts rhyming.

D (17:39)

I'm.

E (17:39)

Taking all in my rhyme catalog and.

A (17:42)

My winning scores to add on.

E (17:43)

Your name is what I came here for.

D (17:45)

And if you think that I'm devastating, don't you know it's right? Because the way that I do it when I rock on the mic, don't you know that it is me? The R O X A N N.

C (17:54)

E. He just said everything he could say. He was going to let the anger of his words try to say all the things that he thought were very hurtful and hateful to women.

E (18:09)

I give you credit for giving a tribe of Roxanne, suck my dick and die. You can't really rap because you ain't down, bitch. You not even a talk of the town.

C (18:18)

But what he did not know was that I had been hearing hurtful and hateful stuff my entire life, so I was ready for it.

C (18:28)

But the catch was he wasn't ready for his own words to be turned around on him. And then when it was my turn, I remember using his lyrics against him.

D (18:39)

What? Wait a minute. Let's get this straight. Use the second. And your little bitty prick you ain't got with your little bitty dick. You told me the second thing and tell me to up and I come in a bucket. So let me see you try to hang with that. You know what you can do? You can kiss my crack inside out and use your toe. Cause, baby, I am number one.

C (19:01)

And I remember the whole crowd going crazy.

E (19:05)

Once again, put your hands together for Fuquan and Roxanne Shante.

C (19:14)

And then I remember him breathing so heavy. And I was saying to myself, if we wasn't at the Marriott, he would have fought me. I knew that I literally had one.

A (19:32)

On Snap Judgment returns. Roxanne Shantae has just one more battle to go to be crowned the best battle rapper in the world. Stay tuned.

C (19:51)

Foreign.

A (19:56)

Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the mic check episode when Last we left, 15 year old Roxanne Shantae from Queensbridge, New York had just out wrapped each and every opponent put before her in the MC battle for world supremacy. But will she take home the big prize? Step judgment.

E (20:19)

Okay, that was kind of good. I like that. That knocked the cobwebs out. Shantae moves on to the finals.

C (20:27)

And for some reason, this whole energy came over me for the last battle because I'm like, now the world is going to know, not just Queensbridge is gonna know that I'm the best. Not just New York is gonna know the best. The entire world is gonna know. Finally, it is the chief rocker himself, Busy Bee. He's the last person for me to battle. If you grew up in New York, anytime between the 70s and the 80s, and you were going to park parties, or you were going to park jams, or you were going to clubs, or you were going to after hours spots, then you knew who Busy B was. And people loved Busy Bee. And Busy B knew that he was that mc. He walk in with that pride and he walk in with his chest out and he had this whole entourage with him. And yeah, baby, that's how it's going to be. Like, he talked like a pimp. A party MC can be one of your most difficult opponents because they know what the crowd wants. They know what to say to make the crowd get the ooh and the ah moments. So even if their rhymes are not as good, they know how to make the crowd respond. And I'm still looking at my watch. I had a little white leather Timex that I valued a lot. And I was saying like, okay, I could still, still catch the store. I'm thinking about how I got to go buy these coats. And then I don't want to make sure that these coats don't get stolen when I get on the train. So now Busy B is getting ready. So I see him fixing his jacket and everything. He said, let me talk to you for a second over here on the side. I said, okay. Cause he's the first one who wanted to talk to me beforehand. Nobody else even asked me how I was doing, how did I feel, how did I get there? He was smooth as a motherfucker. He said, hey, listen, come on over here, let me talk to you for a second. You want something to eat? You good? You want this? Yeah, they been wearing you out all day? And I'm listening to him talking to me and I'm saying, I'm getting ready to get you. So then he says, listen, now, you know, this last round here, I'm thinking we shouldn't go too hard on each other. Don't do me like how you did the other one, because I'm still busy be. So when I leave here, I still got to be busy be. And then he was like, do you do cocaine? I said, no, I don't. He's like, oh, okay. Well, hold on. I do. So he took him a little sniff. He said, now, listen. Now that we ready, I'm just gonna let you know I'm gonna be easy on you. I ain't gonna be hard on you because you're a little girl. So that's what we're gonna do when we go out here. We're gonna be easy on each other. I said, okay. And I'm feeling comfortable because I'm like, I don't want to embarrass you. Like, I did the rest because you spoke to me, and you had some kind words and you cared.

C (23:05)

So Busy Bee goes out, and they get ready to play the beat, and 1, 2, 3, busy B goes out there, and he does his rhymes.

C (23:21)

And I'm listening. I said, hold on. He's out here really going hard at me. And then I'm saying, well, maybe that was just him having to get that off. But then the next time he comes out and he says some even harsher things.

C (23:38)

And when he says them, he's still looking at me, winking. Got this. Then we got. Yeah, we got this. And then I realized what he was doing. So then I just went in and I was like, you know, talking about how backstage you said we wasn't gonna do all of this. And I put all of that in my rhyme.

D (23:55)

Before we came out here, we told ourself a pack. He said, don't get up there talk like that. But see, now he did.

C (24:00)

So the crowd is listening like, oh, you tried to set her up.

D (24:04)

What is a B? It can't code with me. I stomped that in a 1, 2, 3. Your rhyme was cute. I think that it was funny. But we all know who makes the most money. We all know who is getting paid Who? Some guess who ain't got dummy we all know. Yes, I think it's true for busy.

C (24:21)

Be how many times you gonna wear this suit?

E (24:24)

Please get out my face with the master voice that ain't what the people here with the choice visit the music, the music is sweet they want to hear who's gonna rock like me. You the MC that came from way back. Never had an MC that had it like Me back, you always on down. You want to be like me one and only man, let me tell you.

D (24:44)

You know you're through. What you say? I'm younger than you. I can't be a mc. That's way from the back. You need to do it over, cuz you know you're whack. That's right, you something. Get it together. The hat you wear and the ain't even leather. You want to play games and you want to get loose. But we all know who got the truth.

C (25:03)

And the next thing I knew is the end of the rhymes.

E (25:07)

Five minutes, five minutes, five minutes.

C (25:10)

And now the crowd is going crazy. So now we're waiting for the judges. And I see the judges over there. They're talking, and they're getting their cards together, and they shuffling their cards around and everything else. They give his scores.

E (25:23)

Judges, hold your cards up. 9, 18, 27. 47 points for the Chief Rocker.

B (25:30)

All right.

C (25:30)

They didn't give him a perfect score. So then when it came to me, they turned the cards over.

E (25:37)

We got an 8. Bambada, we got a 10. Wizkid, we got a 10.

C (25:42)

Okay.

E (25:43)

And the Fat Boys, we got a 10.

B (25:45)

Roxanne was so far ahead, she didn't even need a high score to win.

C (25:50)

And then judge number three, he turned it over.

C (25:55)

And it was a four.

E (25:56)

The winner, Chief Rocker. Busy Bee.

B (25:59)

Busy Bee wins.

C (26:01)

And the crowd went crazy. They started bullying.

C (26:06)

And for the first time, I felt not like a super mc, but I felt like a little girl. And I remember looking at the number, and I dropped my head. I just couldn't believe it.

C (26:23)

I thought that if you were the best, all you had to do was be the best. And all you had to do was be good at what you were. Because of that day is when I started to question everything. Like, am I really supposed to split my money with y'? All? Nothing seems real to me in this hip hop thing now. I knew that I was being taken advantage of. I never said it out my mouth before. I guess that's why it was so hard to say it just now. Before. I used to always say they took advantage of my mom, but no, they took advantage of me. That was my first heartbreak that day. I fell out of love with hip hop.

C (27:09)

That night. I walked from the Marriott Marquis all the way down to 34th Street. I always felt that whatever. Feeling whatever pain, I could walk it away. And I walked down to the Empire State Building. I remember looking up at the Empire State building, and I remember saying to myself, and it Was the strangest thought, I wonder who lights the Empire State Building.

C (27:35)

And then got on the train and then went back home.

C (27:43)

And they were like, did you win? What happened? I said, I won, but they didn't pay me. And I left it at that.

C (27:57)

After that, I just started living life. I did some unthinkables. I did some unimaginables, but I never did any unforgivables. I didn't walk away angry. I walked away hurt.

C (28:15)

Did I do other things? Yeah. Shout out to the IBEW Workers Local 3 Electrical Workers Union. I learned how to work that. I worked at the Gramercy Park Hotel. I became a mom. I never felt like I died.

B (28:30)

And that could have been the end of her showbiz story. But decades later, in her 40s, she stumbled into a gig hosting parties, telling a few jokes, warming up the crowd, getting people to dance. She was always good with crowds, quick on her feet. And at one of these parties, two movie producers who knew about her past approached her with an incredible offer. They wanted to make a movie about her life. Sounds like a setup, right?

C (28:59)

But from a year of us meeting, we had a movie, and I remember sitting in the car and riding to the movie and seeing people outside in a storm waiting to get in to see my movie.

C (29:19)

I watched it with everyone else, and that was my way of, like, hearing my record with everyone else.

B (29:31)

After the movie release, the respect from rappers, the thing Roxanne had always been missing, started to pour in when Nas did his illmatic.

C (29:42)

He put in a documentary that, like, if it wasn't for Roxanne Shantae, it wouldn't be no me. To hear Killer Mike say things and to hear Eminem say things and to hear Missy Elliott, Sissy Snoop say things, they're saying that they owe a lot to me. To see everybody say all of these things, it was so incredible.

C (30:02)

Everything was summed up for me when I saw judge number three 35 years later.

B (30:08)

This was the judge who gave Roxanne that four the score that lost her the MC battle for world supremacy.

C (30:15)

I was with my husband. We go to an event, and my husband spotted him out of nowhere. Like, literally. My husband was like.

C (30:24)

And then I'm like, yeah, leave it alone. And he was like, no. He said, because that day changed your whole life. So we see Judge number three, and we're on a red carpet, and he pulls him to the side. And before my husband could say anything, and before I could say anything, Judge number three looks at me and he says.

C (30:48)

So proud of you. I see everything that you've done and I am so happy for you. And then here go my husband cutting in. But why'd you do it?

C (31:00)

He was like.

C (31:03)

Hip hop had just started being taken seriously as a genre of music. They just started getting out of the parks, they just started getting major record deals. And he said the best in the world with everybody looking that day couldn't be a 15 year old girl because they'd have never taken hip hop seriously.

C (31:28)

I hugged him and I said okay. I said okay.

C (31:34)

He said, and I just want to let you know that you won that day. And I said, I know.

A (31:51)

A huge big giant. Thank you to the now Grammy winning forever Queen of rocks Roxanne Shantae for telling her story to the snap. You can find Roxanne's Instagram and social media on our show Notes. Roxanne hosts a daily show on Sirius XM's Code Channel 43 Rock the Bells radio and Roxanne is always Roxanne. Original score for that piece was by Lauren Newsome. The editor was Nancy Lopez. It was produced by Justin Cremon.

A (32:29)

Now if you missed even a moment, welcome dear friends to the world of SNAP storytelling. Know that Atani Plot, our five part series that recently dropped. You can listen to all of it on podcast platforms everywhere right now. KQED in San Francisco is Snap Judgment's Orbiting hall of Justice. SNAP is brought to you by the team that can spit rhymes to the best of them. Except of course for the uber producer Mr. Mark Ristich because he is more of a yodeler. No Snap studios content may be used for training, testing or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. And on on Team snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL CIL Local 51. There's Nancy Lopez, Pat Mesiti, Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorill, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Teo Dicott, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marisa Dodge, David Exime and this is not the new no way is this a news. In fact, you could be minding your own business watching a football game and some idiot could start shouting at you about where you went to high school for some reason and you would still still not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PR.