Often Decried As Hopelessly Sexist, Hip-Hop Actually Has Women to Thank for Much of Its Early Success
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BEHIN D ( the ) Music Often decried as hopelessly sexist, hip-hop actually has women to thank for much of its early success. Here, the fierce foremothers who worked behind the scenes reveal how they brought the beat to every street in America BY SABRINA FORD PORTRAITS BY ELIZABETH PERRIN 068 / BUST // AUG/SEPT BEHIN D ( the ) Music MONA SCOTT VIOLATOR MANAGEMENT MONICA LYNCH KNOWS a hip-hop star work ethic and a love of music, eventual- turntablists. And Scott and Joseph have when she sees one. There is an indefin- ly becoming one of hip-hop’s most pow- managed the careers of some of the able quality, she says, something that just erful women. In the 19 years she spent at biggest names in hip-hop. “Hip-hop pro- makes people stop and pay attention. Tommy Boy, an influential early hip-hop vided a tremendous amount of opportuni- “I’ll give you an example,” says the 50- label, Lynch helped launch the careers of ties for women, which might seem anti- year-old former president of Tommy Boy major acts, including Afrika Bambaataa, thetical because of the association that Records. She goes on to tell the story of De La Soul, Naughty by Nature, and Biz many people have with misogyny and a teenager she invited to her office at the Markie. And though it might seem coun- hip-hop,” says Lynch. “There has been a suggestion of friends who’d seen the girl terintuitive to a music genre known for lot of attention paid to misogynist lyrics in perform. “She came in with jeans and a T- its machismo, Lynch is part of a group of hip-hop over the years, and I’m not going shirt and this cute bubble-top hairdo, with women who were instrumental in cata- to defend or damn it. I think it exists, but no makeup. She had so much presence. pulting hip-hop from inner-city ethos to some of the people who helped put those She was very smart—she hadn’t traveled pop-culture phenomenon. records out were women.” outside the tri-state area, but she seemed Even though the male/female power In fact, it was a female record execu- worldly,” says Lynch. “It was one of those struggle in rap music has always been tive, Sylvia Robinson, who was behind the things where you can’t quite put your present, Lynch and her peers say that first commercially successful hip-hop re- finger on it, but you know it when you see the early days of hip-hop were magical lease. The story goes that she was looking it.” That was 20 years ago. The girl was times for women looking to make it in the for the next big thing when she stumbled Queen Latifah. record business. Julie Greenwald, Sylvia upon hip-hop. Robinson was already a Lynch may not be able to pinpoint Robinson, DJ Jazzy Joyce, Mona Scott, successful singer and music producer how she does it, but she has a proven and Claudine Joseph also made their by the time hip-hop appeared. In 1957, track record of finding and developing mark on different areas of hip-hop. Green- as half of Mickey & Sylvia, the R&B duo talent. Like many of the young hip-hop wald and Robinson, like Lynch, became she formed with her guitar instructor, she acts she helped turn into stars in the ’80s powerful music executives. For more than had a hit with “Love Is Strange.” By the and ’90s, Lynch started out in the busi- 25 years, DJ Jazzy Joyce has been one of late ’70s, she had cofounded her second ness with nothing more than a strong the most visible and in-demand female record label with her husband when, look- MONICA LYNCH TOMMY BOY RECORDS WITH QUEEN LaTIFah PHOTO COURTESY OF MONICA LYNCH PHOTO COURTESY ing for something new and different for it, she got her first taste of hip-hop at a Harlem club. That in- spired her to put together a rap trio, and one studio session later she had a hit. Robinson’s Sugar Hill Re- cords released the eternal classic “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979. As the genre took off, many women, some with experience in the business and a lot without, contributed significantly to what would quickly become a cultural phenomenon. Perhaps the most dramatic success story comes from Julie Green- wald, who began working in the industry 15 years ago at the age of 22, just as the movement was exploding. When she got her first job in hip-hop, assisting then-president of Def Jam Lyor Cohen, she thought it would be a summer gig. Greenwald says a couple of months in, she and Cohen “really clicked,” and she knew she’d be sticking around. Cohen promoted her. “Next thing you know,” she says, “he’s like, ‘Hey, I’ll give you a piece of my company if you stay and never leave me.’” It’s the stuff that music industry legends are made of, and it all happened to Greenwald by the age of 25. Greenwald doesn’t discuss specifics, but published reports say she became a millionaire in 1999, when Universal bought Def Jam for $130 million. Part of the reason women have been more suc- cessful in hip-hop than in other genres, says Lynch, has to do with hip-hop’s outsider status. When hip-hop started to evolve, many established record labels and executives chose to ignore it “because hip-hop was sort of a bastard child in terms of the industry at large,” she says. As a result, independent JULIE GREENWALD hip-hop labels emerged, and they didn’t have the same old boys’ network as the rock industry. “There wasn’t a template or a prec- DEF JAM edent for how things were supposed to be,” says Lynch, “so you says. “We were all about independent thinking and just attacking had a lot of guys who had right-hand people who were women. the streets with the Def Jam brand.” Greenwald and Cohen were We didn’t have to go up through the ranks of the rock scene at so committed that they would spend whole nights calling The the major labels, where if you weren’t sitting at the desk outside Box, the pay-per-request video network that brought hip-hop someone’s office there wasn’t a space for you.” videos into homes long before MTV deemed them worthy. They Greenwald agrees, attributing her rise to the fly-by-the-seat- would get the numbers of all local Box stations across the coun- of-the-pants spirit that guided the early days of hip-hop. “Any- try and spend hours dialing in to request Def Jam videos. “We thing went—there were no rules, and ignorance was bliss,” she were the first to jack The Box,” says Greenwald proudly. “We “We didn’t have to go up through the ranks of the rock scene at the major labels, where if you weren’t sitting at the desk outside someone’s office there wasn’t a space for you.” // BUST / 071 DJ JAZZY JOYCE + LL CooL J would sit in front of [Cohen’s] television on different phone lines a male cousin, which, she says, spared her the hassle of trying from 10 at night til, like, 3 in the morning.” Within a couple of to deal with guys who wanted more than a shout-out in return years, Greenwald was running promotions at Def Jam. for lessons. She related to the energy of hip-hop. “It was the But the way women promoted the music expanded beyond Reagan era—crack was killing the community like crazy,” she the confines of corporate conference rooms. In 1981, long says. “Things were wild. The sights and sounds of hip-hop were before hip-hop would be recognized as a cultural force, then- so fresh and so incredible.” Joyce, who is now 39 but still looks 13-year-old Jazzy Joyce was bringing hip-hop to the downtown like a teenager, says she’s proudest of feeling that in some way club-hopping masses. “I was skinny,” recalls the Bronx-bred DJ, she has touched the lives of the people who connected with her “with one-and-a-half milk crates full of records.” She would later early spinning and mix-tape productions. spin at legendary clubs the Roxy, Club Cheetah, and Tunnel. At Aside from promoting and producing, some women got their the same time, she was making a name for herself as a mix-tape foot in the door helping hip-hop artists gain mainstream appeal, hawker before the music went digital, spreading the new sound then stayed in the industry to expand the culture even further. of hip-hop by selling her own collections of popular songs. Mona Scott, 40, began her career in the late ’80s, working with “Technology wasn’t what it is now,” explains Joyce. “When I a firm called Duntori & Company that helped artists develop was doing the mix-tape thing, it would take me 45 minutes to their performance skills. “It was all about standing on stage make one tape, so respect my hustle.” Joyce learned to DJ from and projecting, holding your mic so your voice isn’t muffled, OF JAZZY JOYCE COOL J PHOTO COURTESY LL 072 / BUST // AUG/SEPT CLAUDINE JOSEPH VIOLATOR MANAGEMENT she realized she’d outgrown her posi- tion and the “wack” salary they were paying her.