Emmerald: How did you get started rapping and MCing?
Lyric L: I was always the chatterbox in my family. When we weren't dancing and listening to music, I was talking. I was always asking questions, singing, talking, and yapping away. I managed to control this by writing stories, poems, songs and entering music competitions at school. When I began to win some of the competitions, I decided to enter more of them and keep doing them. I performed for the entire school at assemblies and school concerts. I followed up by entering music competitions in college and kept winning or qualifying in the top 3! I verbally battled male MCs and freestyled and kept my place amongst the elite few at numerous underground HipHop/poetry slam events. That helped me to believe in myself, my art and my creative ability. That made me always want to give and perform and represent. Talk was cheap (very), so eventually I decided to make a career of it, networking, MCing for DJs, doing shows, featuring on tracks, and I have been lucky to perform with live bands at Jazz Cafe in London, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Turkey, Portugal and Russia.
Emmerald: What was it that drew you towards rapping and MCing as your expression of art, that is instead of singing or doing poetry.
Lyric L: I just love music. It takes me to a place I was and am unfamiliar with, and I am more than willing to go. I enjoy singing but don't do it as much as I should. I have great singers around me and I love harmonizing. I like writing and expressing myself through song and words. I started writing and entered poetry and creative writing competitions at school. I had to perform in front of the entire school and loved it. I brought something new and fresh to the table and won some competitions against musicians and singers. From there, I carried on to try newer things.
Emmerald: Aside from the success that you've enjoyed as an MC, winning competitions and battles, what have been some other reactions that you've gotten from male MCs? Have they been open to you as a female MC? Have they accepted you as equal?
Lyric L: Initially some did and others didn't. A few would resort to verbal violence saying some pretty obscene things to me and about me in their lyrics. I was really offended personally, spiritually and as a woman, but I would look over it and come back with lyrics like, "U disrespect-- telling me go down south. Do u kiss ur mother with that same bad mouth? If ur gunnin' me just for the crowd to please, than u diss ur aunt, grandmother, sister & niece!" You know, I just had to think on my feet and not go out like some chump. That was in the days of dark caps, deep raps and verbal slaps. But I've grown and never really speak about it. Now and again when I see peeps from back in the day, they mention it.
It took so much for me to step up to rap in those competitions because my parents were super strict. I used to lie and say I was going to the cinema just to go out to these underground clubs. It's all part of my design. I can't wait to see the full picture develop.
