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August 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of Cindy Campbell's infamous back-to-school party and the birth of Hip-Hop. Back To Reading Credits is a 6-episode audiovisual series from BRIC Radio celebrating the first 50 years of Hip-Hop and the people behind the curtain who drive the culture. On the show, BRIC President Wes Jackson interviews scholars, artists, executives, thought leaders, and other unsung heroes of the movement about how they shaped the look, feel, and flow of Hip-Hop, and about how Hip-Hop shapes us.
BACK TO READING CREDITS - EPISODE 1 - KATHY IANDOLI
PUB: 01.31.24
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
[MUSIC BED: Slow, heavy beat]
[INTRO]
[VO] Wes Jackson (WJ): Welcome to Back To Reading Credits – a new, 6-part audio-visual podcast from BRIC Radio celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop, and the people behind the curtain who drive the culture. I’m your host, BRIC President Wes Jackson. [FADE MUSIC]
[Archival CLIP]
Announcer: Let's take a minute and turn back the clock. [MUSIC: "Space Cowboy" by Jonzun Crew] Go to the first hero of the hip-hop groove. The man who made the people move. [FADE MUSIC]
[VO] WJ: On August 11 1973, 15-year-old Cindy Campbell threw a back-to-school party in the Bronx that forever shaped music history.
[Archival CLIP]
From Jamaica he came with a sense of rhythm, and what he brought to the Bronx was a sound system. Music he played, made life work and made him a legend... Kool DJ. Herc.
[VO] WJ: 50 years later, we gathered at BRIC House to mark 50 years of Hip-Hop…
[PERSON-ON-THE-STREET INTERVIEW - PART 1 - What’s happening at BRIC today?]
[TV static] [beep] [MUSIC: Upbeat]
Producer: Kamauu take one [clapboard smack]
Kamauu: I am at... What's the official name?
Florette: I am thoroughly enjoying myself at the BRIC 50th Anniversary
Hip-Hop Festival block party.
Tadia: Celebrating Hip-Hop 50. Celebrating 40 years of, I believe.
community access television.
Deron: We have multiple anniversaries going on here today, for BRIC and its
history and the history of arts and culture in Brooklyn.
Florette: And it's wonderful. I'm having a wonderful time. My grandchildren are
here with me. Some of my friends are here, some of my friends from BRIC are
here, or other producers are here that I invited.
Tanya R.: Want to give a special thanks for having us participate in being a part
of 50 years of Hip-Hop.
Daquan: It's been an amazing day. Long, wonderful, beautiful, amazing day for the BRIC family.
Tadia: We're celebrating Brooklyn! [END MUSIC] [TV click]
[MUSIC BED: Slow, heavy beat]
[VO] WJ: For our first-ever episode of Back To Reading Credits, I spoke with Kathy Iandoli [yahn-doh-lay] live, onstage at BRIC House in Downtown Brooklyn as part of BRIC’s 50th anniversary Hip-Hop Block Party. Kathy is a journalist, educator, media coach and the author of “God Save The Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop”. We talked about Cindy’s party, the pitfalls of revisionist history, and our favorite women artists in the game today. [FADE MUSIC]
[KATHY IANDOLI INTERVIEW - PART 1]
WJ: Welcome to our first show. Thank you. [applause] I am honored here, to kick off our inaugural show with Kathy Iandoli. I get that right?
Kathy Iandoli (KI): Lil bit.
WJ: I got to get the intonations. You can correct me with.
KI: It's like Speedy Gonzalez. Like, andale! Andale! Like that.
WJ: Andale. Okay. I slowed it down too much.
KI: But it's more "andale" than Speedy Gonzalez.
WJ: Kathy is a critically acclaimed Hip-Hop journalist, documentarian, podcast, and author of God Save the Queens The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop, and the forthcoming memoir, the Queen bee with Little Kim. Kathy is also the premier career media coach for some of the top artists in the music industry. A professor of music business at New York University, Kathy routinely serves as a TV and radio panelist for discussions on Hip-Hop and gender. She lives here in New York. Welcome, Kathy!
KI: Thank you! Hi, everyone.
WJ: Let's give her a round of applause for our live audience. So, Kathy, my first question is please expound upon that bio. What did it miss? I know we tend to cut it short. Talk your talk for a second.
KI: I mean, I think it's pretty accurate. I wrote my own bio, so...you know. [laughter]
WJ: So there's this sort of academic, the journalism and the media coach.
Kathy Iandoli [00:03:53] Yeah.
WJ: Can you talk a little bit about that last role, the media coach? Because I don't know if everybody understands what that entails.
KI: Well, it's kind of layered, right. So originally it used to be, in the past, they used to call it a "media trainer." Right? Which is preparing an artist or celebrity to talk in front of the cameras, to talk to the media. Anything that's media-facing requires, required, some degree of training in the way of poise and how to handle difficult subjects and things of that nature. But then, in the interest of, like, authenticity, the role has evolved. And over the last, I would say about ten years or so, I've been a media coach for artists. And in the last 3 to 5, I mainly coach the top women in Hip-Hop.
WJ: Got it. Can I also ask you to talk a little bit about your academic work at NYU?
KI: Yeah.
WJ: What classes are you teaching? How long?
KI: So I'm a graduate of NYU's master's program in music business, and from there, I became kind of like a professor in residence for eight years. And I teach publicity, promotions and marketing in the music industry to grad students. I developed two courses there thus far, Writing In The Music Industry, which is for undergrad and grad students. And then, of course, on Lana Del Rey at Clive Davis Institute, which kind of went viral a year ago, which was an interesting thing, because the rollout was kind of like a book rollout. I had like a publicist and the whole thing, and I was like, I didn't know people cared about learning that much, but let's go.
WJ: [laughter] We do care about learning just to reinforce.
KI: Right? Thank God.
WJ: So for those who may be listening to this podcast later, we're recording this live at BRIC House in the ballroom as part of our annual block party. And it's just really just I just want to say it's an honor to have you here.
KI: Thank you.
WJ: You know, really, the motivation for everything that we're doing, celebrating Hip-Hop 50 has actually been specifically about Cindy Campbell, right? When we were cooking this up, there was a lot of talk about that, that famed party on August 11th, 1973. A lot of people talk about Herc, aka Clive, who we love, all do respect. But as an executive myself, I said, I'm really the child of Cindy who organized the party. And I know you have some thoughts about Cindy's legacy and how it's been told over the years, so I would love for you just to kind of build on the legacy of Cindy Campbell as we look at 50 years of Hip-Hop.
KI: Well, I think for a good long while there was like, really, Cindy, erasure happening. In the interest of kind of hurrying the story of Hip-Hop history along, it was almost like, let's remove all the prominent women until 1984, when Roxanne Shanté first entered the scene. And really, the party at 1520 Sedgwick was Cindy's idea. It was her party. She didn't want to dress in the same clothes as all of her classmates. She wanted to go down to Delancey. She didn't want to go hang out in the Bronx and shop at those stores. So she decided to have a fundraiser. She told her parents they went to the equivalent of, like, a Sam's Club or Costco and bought, like, hot dogs and sodas. She had a flier made. She asked her brother to DJ. Now, at this point, Herc was already deejaying, but this was the party that was going to crystallize him as a legend.
[Archival CLIP]
[MUSIC: "Space Cowboy" by Jonzun Crew] Interviewee: When Kool Herc gave a party, everybody be there. A lot of people have fun. Big fun. That was the talk for the whole weekend, or the whole summer, "where did you party?" "I was partying with Kool Herc" and he gave a block party, you know, the tennis court disco, a lot of other things too. [FADE MUSIC]
KI: But it was Cindy's idea. And if you look at the flier, it's a, you know, a replica flier that they've since started circulating. You'll see at the bottom is like, you know, "Cindy C., along with, like, Klark Kent and Coke La Rock, like, they're all at the bottom, but it's like she had almost become like a footnote. Like, you know, when you see those old school club fliers and there's like, 50 names on there. Cindy's only one of the 50, but she was the one who threw the party. So when I wrote God Save the Queens, I felt that it was important to open with the Supreme Queen. The reason why all of this happened. And, you know, I'm sure the story has been told elsewhere, but I think just seeing it in print in a book form, it had since kind of sparked this Cindy revolution that I'm just so here for. And, you know, my friends and I had this thing with this past, Hip-Hop anniversary, the 50th, we kept saying, "Happy Cindy Day."
WJ: Mmm. Oh really?
KI: Yeah.
WJ: Just to poke you a little bit about that, because we do have a mural of that flier. Right outside. I don't know if you saw when you were walking up -
KI: No, but I need a picture.
WJ: But we have the Cindy – I call it the same thing – "Cindy's flier"...
KI: Yeah.
WJ: …on our wall next to our Na’ye Perez print. But happy Cindy day. What, what happened in those early days? And tell me more about how you feel like your research kind of got this back into the popular narrative.
KI: I mean, Cindy did what most women do. We take our backseat while watching men flourish. And she was being a really good sister to her brother who had bigger plans. You know, there was a bigger plan for Herc. And I think she did what she had to do in the sense of just, you know, being there to play support. And I think that in doing the research and kind of hearing how revisionist history during that time period was always a trip because it's like... It's changed. I've seen interviews where someone said it was Cindy's birthday and it was her birthday party. Then I've seen others where it was, you know, she just helped promote it. But literally, she threw the party. So through my research, I wanted to make sure -- because one thing you don't want to do is you don't want to leave Herc out of the equation in the interest of just saying "now, this is all Cindy's idea." It was her idea, definitely. But because Herc was such a genius, like, like the Campbell family is full of geniuses.
WJ: Right.
KI: You had Herc, whose father had worked in electronics, so he could piece together all of this electronic equipment and built his turntables and, like, dubbed them the Herculord, where he would be playing at a jam. And you could hear it for blocks and blocks. No one could actually compete with that. And then you had Cindy, the genius with her marketing sense to throw this incredible party. The interesting part about it is that the whole reason how this all sparked is because everyone wanted to sound like Herc, and during the blackout, kids were robbing electronic stores in the hopes of getting the turntables to compete with the sound that the Herculord had. But you can't. It's like a technological genius building out this sound system.
WJ: Right.
KI: So I think that you can't have one without the other, but you certainly shouldn't leave anyone out.
WJ: Right. There's other stories, of course, that have been erased, particularly of Black women. They're Jamaican immigrants. So we have an immigrant story in there. I know you have some good ones, but share some other stories that maybe the people have... Stories that have been erased that we can lift up.
KI: Well, I think MC Sha-Rock, I'm so happy that she's coming back to the surface and really just being prominent as the first female MC. But, you know, everybody refers to her as Miss Plus One, as if she was like an accessory to the Funky Four. However, Sha-Rock was an original member of the Funky Four, so she had left and had a baby, and when she came back, she became Miss Plus One. So there's a lot of misconceptions of where Sha sat in that. Because the thing was, you know, being signed to Sugar Hill Records was, you know, like an ongoing episode of, like, making the band, right? Where, you know, Sylvia just kept playing musical chairs.
WJ: Sylvia Robinson.
KI: Sylvia Robinson. Like I hang out with her. But um -
KI: [laughter] I'm just saying for the record. Footnoting.
KI: You know, Syl Rock. No, I mean, but - [laughter] but it was like one of those things where it's like, you know, Raheem left, you know, he went to, I believe, the Furious Five. I could be - I don't -.
Crowd: Yeah!
KI: Oh thank you! Okay, so Raheem left and then they replaced them with Rodney?
WJ: Mmhmm. That sounds right.
KI: Yes. And then by that point there were still four members. So when Sha came back, it was like, "Okay, well we're going to add you on as Miss Plus one." And I took umbrage to that because she's nobody's plus one. But I understand the nature of the Funky Four having had this name, and they couldn't just turn into the Funky Five because we had the Furious Five.
WJ: Right? Right.
KI: And so, I mean, that's one example of how there's like this constant revisionist history.
WJ: I know you've talked about that even Sha-Rock, again, being complicit in this false narrative about herself. So tell me more about that.
WJ: Yes. Yeah, I mean, there's been interviews where sometimes, you know, she will say "I'm Miss Plus One", but I think it's out of necessity. Right? You're talking about an era where there were no journalists documenting this, right? It hadn't even been called Hip-Hop yet. So without a journal of record. There's a gift and a curse to that. There's the ability to rewrite it as you see fit as the years continue on, but then there's no physical proof outside of the fliers that they would pass around. And I think the other thing that people just kind of fail to realize. You're talking about 13 year olds.
WJ: Give me more on that because, right, I remember you said this when we talked last week. The age of, if we can rewind the clock, rewind the clock between Cindy and Clive -- give me more on that, please.
KI: Yeah, I think, Clive was, Herc was like 17, and I believe Cindy was like 15 or something like that. There's only like a few years between them. And that's on the older side compared to the other pioneers, you're talking 13, 14 years old. And the the thing is, when you look at the old fliers, if you really study the fliers -- and shout out to MC Debbie D. who's the first female MC soloist who is a self-proclaimed flierologist, and she was the one who pointed this out to me during my God Save the Queens interviews -- If you look at the fliers, it literally says "P.S. [whatever school] will be appearing at this event, and the event is in a school auditorium, like, or even like a park. It's like all the kids from. P.S. -- they're not high school like you're, you're still talking like eighth grade.
WJ: Elementary, junior high maybe.
KI: And I think the wildest part about it is when we talk about the pioneers, you know, this narrative that they're so much older than they actually are because if they were 13 and 73, they're only like 63 now. Like people are talking like they're in their 80s and 90s and it's like, no, they were children.
WJ: Someone asked me earlier today when I was giving them this sort of Cindy, you know, narrative and our inspiration, like, "is she still around?" And there was this almost this, this automatic assumption that somehow maybe she's passed away, which is -
KI: Yeah. Unreal.
WJ: Infuriating because she's probably a train ride away.
KI: No, she literally received an award at the Yankee Stadium during the concert -- she and Herc received this incredible award. I don't want to misquote what it was, but it was like "the king and the queen of Hip-Hop" that was bestowed upon them. And I was like, I got all teary eyed when they gave it to Cindy too because I literally sat there and I was like, waiting. I'm like, "you're gonna give that to Cindy too, right?" I'm like, yeah [laughter] and then they gave it to her and I was like [crying, choked up sound]. It just choked me up because I think it was like the first time, as far as I saw, that there was recognition that this is our foremother, our founding mother of Hip-Hop.
WJ: Yeah. And I do want to make sure we're clear, you know, that scholars and researchers, particularly women like you, have led the charge in this to make sure we don't forget. As just a bit of a nerd myself, I kind of figured out that I'm more Cindy's son than Herc's because I can't DJ.
KI: Right.
WJ: But I think there is a really -- I just don't want to let this go too far without realizing how many women in power are lifting her up and others as well.
KI: Yeah.
WJ: And I think it's a really good thing for the culture, comprehensively, no matter which side you fall on. But with that said, I want to go to my next question. You've also talked about this weird jump, right? Like Sha-Rock and, you know, Debbie D. and these things. And then it's like, and then it was little Kim and Foxy Brown. But then there's more erasure of, you know, maybe a decade of women who were artists, executives. So tell us a little bit about that sort of jump of -- because I know you had talked about Nikki D,
KI: Yeah.
WJ: And Def Jam, there's so many other people whose names have not been mentioned. So please give us some knowledge on that.
KI: I think that during the pioneering era, as we're leaning into the golden era, there was a cherry picking of the stories, like picking what they felt was most prominent in the storytelling. And it didn't begin to, like, scratch the surface. Right? Because yes, we had Sha-Rock, but we also had MC Debbie D. And Lisa Lee, who together were Us Girls from Beat Street.
[CLIP from “Beat Street”]
[MUSIC: 80s Beat] MC: Well, here three ladies from our neighborhood / Guaranteed the rock the beat, and rock the beat good. / So come on, Debbie D., Sha-Rock and Lisa Lee / Step up to the front so all your friends can see. / We're all backing you up 100% / We know you practiced all week, now this is it / If you're in favor of what I've said, everybody say go ahead!
Everybody: Go ahead!
[Chorus] Us Girls: Us Girls can boogie too! We can dance, we can shake it. Cause, us girls can boogie too! So come on, girls. Let's go break it. Let's go break it! [FADE OUT MUSIC]
KI: You had Pebblee poo. Who was the first lady of the Herculords. I'm like, I don't know if people know? the Herculord went from a sound system to an entire crew. And then you had glamorous, who is the first female MC out of Long Island. And then in 1984, I think was the turning point with Shanté with Roxanne Shanté.
[CLIP from “Roxanne’s Revenge”]
[MUSIC: 90s Beat] MC: Video Music Box continues with one of the hottest lady rappers on the music scene. Here's Roxanne Shanté and Roxanne's Revenge.
Roxanne Shanté: Well my name is Roxanne, a-don't you know, I just a-cold rock a party and I do this show. I said, I met these three guys, and you know it's true. And let me tell you and explain them all to you -- [FADE OUT MUSIC]
KI: Everything changed when Hip-Hop made its first dollar.
WJ: Mm, yes, speak on it.
KI: And that became the true start of the erasure of women. And it happened when Roxanne Shanté hit the radio. That was the part that people couldn't stomach. And then a couple of years later, for the Battle Of World Supremacy when Roxanne Shanté scored like a four -- everyone else gave her, like, a near-perfect score. She was against Busy Bee -- she would have won the Battle For World Supremacy. And there's an interesting story behind that. So, Kurtis Blow had been judging a competition about a week prior in Los Angeles. And this one guy is like sitting there and he's rapping and he's cursing. And, you know, Kurtis Blow has always been a man of God and this and this guy sitting here calling women hoes. And he's like talking violence. And, Kurtis is like, he wanted to give him a zero, right? But he knew he was in Los Angeles. He was in someone else's turf. He was like, "I can't do that", right? So he gave him a ten.
WJ: Mm.
KI: And he felt horrible about that ten. He gave that ten to Ice-T, and that became the turning point and Ice-T's career. When he came back to New York for the Battle For World Supremacy. Shanté was doing her thing and she was always cursing. She had a mouth. And he was like, "Now's my chance. I'm. I'm on my own turf." He gave her a four. And I spoke with Busy Bee about this. And I said, "do you think she should have won?" And he said to me, "I think I did my thing, but I think her winning would have marked a changing of the guard." And that moment, I think, set a tone that we didn't really grab the reins until 2023.
[PERSON-ON-THE-STREET INTERVIEW - PART 2 - When did you fall in love with Hip-Hop?]
[TV static] [beep] [MUSIC: Upbeat]
Kamauu: My first experience with Hip-Hop was with Arrested Development and Heavy D.
Tadia: Growing up in Brooklyn. I mean, it's inevitable. We are literally surrounded by Hip-Hop culture.
Nicole N.: The first time I heard Hip-Hop was WBLS. I snuck and stayed up late, which I should not have done.
Bria Ford: It was moving to New York City, 1985 and listening to my cousin buy a Run-DMC album.
Nicole N.: I had a cassette tape, and I was like, pressing pause record, pause record. You know, and that went on for like, a good 30 minutes.
Florette: I became aware of Hip-Hop through my daughter, actually, and my sister's son, my nephew.
Juliete: We were on the steps, you know, eating icey and listening to Hip-Hop music and dancing and being at the park.
Tanya R.: In Brownsville, in Betsy Head Park, and I heard "You see a-one for the treble, two for the time, c'mon y'all let's rock that [tweet] with the whistle and the beat. [laughter] Da-dum-dum.
Jackie: "Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge" yeah, that one.
Nijah: Going verse for verse in the car with my dad singing "Who shot ya? Separate the weak from the obsolete. Hard to creep these Brooklyn streets."
Tadia: You know we used to have the pencils. Making the beats. The birth of like just creating music and expressing ourselves through just what we have access to. [END MUSIC] [TV click]
[KATHY IANDOLI INTERVIEW PART 2]
WJ: This concept that with this sort of narrative that Hip-Hop is in a weakened state because we don't have a number one Billboard album, which is somewhat ridiculous. But you have I know, I know, you have a theory that it may be connected to the ascendant female artists. Yeah. This is no, this is no coincidence that some people are predicting our demise as women are rising again. So yeah.
KI: It's no coincidence that with women at the top, people are shouting, "Hip-Hop is dead" again, right?
WJ: The idea of the metrics reigning supreme is ridiculous, because these are systems that don't -- have not historically supported us.
KI: Yeah.
WJ: Can I ask you a question, though? Just almost to pull back a little bit. You see so many women being ascendant. And I don't know, in my years, having seen so many at the same time. There used to be this old Highlander thing, "there could be only one", right?
KI: Right right.
WJ: So someone would rise and then they would oddly be pitted against another one. But now that's over. What do you -- what maybe could we attest, you know, all of these women rising. The previous question aside and the foolishness, there is clearly strength. What do you think is going on as a scholar and as a creator yourself?
KI: Well, first and foremost, there's no male mentors that are now standing over women kind of like this, like a brooding figure of like, "yes, yes, I did this." That's kind of been erased, right?
WJ: You mean, oh, like, "I got a crew and here's my here's my woman”? Yeah.
KI: Or the guy who put the woman on. I don't think of men when I think of Megan Thee Stallion. Even with Cardi B, with QC, I don't think of Coach K & P, right? I don't even think of Wayne and them when I think of Nicki. Right. But the other part is women are playing the industry at their own game. They're no longer allowing these tactics to happen, and they're teaming up. And I think what's really funny is that when these songs are coming out and it's just girls having fun. Everyone's like, "oh my God, it's so gross that you're saying the same thing that men have been saying for years, yuck."
WJ: [laughter] How dare you be yourself?
KI: How dare you celebrate your body without 2 Chainz? Like, what? [laughter]
WJ: Right, right.
KI: And I think it's just funny because it's like women, women are doing their thing. They're hanging out. They're having a blast. They're making men and women, non-binary, like all listen to their music. And it's so funny how people are kissing their teeth at them.
WJ: Mmhm, mmhm.
KI: And the thing that always blows my mind is like, I'll have some men in the industry who, like, pull me aside and they think I'm like the "reasonable woman" and I'm just like, I'm like, "you're gonna lose this battle." They're like, "you're a, you're a sensible gal." –
WJ: “Let me talk to you about this issue.”
KI: – "What do you think about Sukihana?" Sukihana is one of my clients. So I'm just like, I was like, "she's amazing." Sexyy Red is amazing. First of all, you're not going to get me to talk down about any woman. But also, what am I more sensible at? Not rapping about my body? Well, give me a piece of paper. I'll write something. But it's one of those things where it's the equivalent of when you see men in the comments section, who will name some obscure woman who rapped in like '92 and use her as the basis of why they don't listen to Latto. I don't like... You know what? Latto is not MC Skippy from Duluth. No, she's not! But I don't sit here and say, "you know what? Kendrick Lamar is great, but he's no Skilow." What?!
WJ: [laughter] Right, right, right. That's a good, that's a great --
KI: Why do you pull artists from obscurity to line them up next to a prominent woman as a means to say, this person who never got famous is somehow waiting behind Latto for her big chance? It's just like, no! Latto's a star.
WJ: But it tracks, as they say, right? This level of utmost brutality, right? It tracks in America, it tracks in the music business of, if you're going to become ascendant, all of a sudden I've got an argument to make against you. But, you know, if I can ask kind of, you know, almost a follow up: So we went from Cindy and Sha-Rock, maybe even a tucking in their chain themselves, you know, for people of a certain age group, to now, you know, Megan and Cardi doing the opposite. What happened? Are they just like, are they your students in air quotes? Have they seen this hustle play out and they're just actively saying, "I know what you're about to do. I don't need a man. I don't need Ice Cube. I don't need Big Daddy Kane or whatever to do it."? What what is – what do you attribute this level of power that we are witnessing.
KI: So during the pioneering era when the kids were 13 years old, the biggest obstacle women had were men would unplug their turntables and they would unplug their speakers. Right. That was the big thing. And they would do it over a fence because they knew women couldn't hop the fence or they would like, not help them lift their equipment so that they could sabotage. Right. And I mean, that's kid-ish stuff where it's like, "now you can't DJ!" Right? But 50 years later, they're still trying to unplug our equipment. And the reality is, women of today have just recognized it. And with all of my clients, all of which are the aforementioned and then some. It's one of those things where they're like, "okay, how do I stay ready for what's about to come?" That's really what it boils down to. Someone is going to say something about this song. Someone's going to say something about this outfit. Someone's going to say something about this IG post. How do I navigate? And that's where I come into play, because I've been doing this for 25 years, and wrote a book on it. You know, I did a documentary on it. And I love to see women win. And I was always -- I reached this point where I became a terrible journalist because I cared more about the artist than the byline. Right. So I was like, "hey, this is a really great career switch where it's helping to prepare you for all of the things that are coming your way." And watching my, my, my girls, my, my daughters, right? Because they're much younger than me. But watching them at work, when they're doing their interviews and not letting these interviewers kind of penetrate the force field, it's making so many people mad and it just makes me so proud. 'Cause I'm like, listen.
WJ: [laughter] You're a bit of an agitator in a way that we needed.
[PERSON-ON-THE-STREET INTERVIEW - PART 3 - How have women artists shaped Hip-Hop?]
[TV static] [beep] [MUSIC: Upbeat]
Chasity: Coming up in an age where, like, you just saw so many women really starting to, like, throw that empowerment word.
Juliete: You know, strong woman, power and feminist.
Bria Ford: I feel like all women should embrace woman because it's not that many women that rap.
Daquan: Little Kim The Queen Bee from Brooklyn. I feel like her stage presence is unmatched. Like, you know, she can rock a stage!
Jackie: She paved the way in a very different way for a lot of women in Hip-Hop.
Chasity: I like Remy Ma, you know, I think she does a really good job.
BreezyLYN: Well, now it's Sexyy Red.
Bria Ford: I would have to go with Foxy Brown. She has that, like, New York raspy, aggressive, but not too aggressive, kind of voice.
Jackie: Missy Elliott. She's really creative and she's still in a space of innovation.
Girll Codee: Shout out to April Walker. She's a Black woman as well. She was born and raised in Brooklyn, and she was actually one of the originators of streetwear and Hip-Hop.
Nijah: I like Lola Brooks for the new school of Hip-Hop. She has that same Biggie vibe -- "Uh uh uh uh."
Florette: Rihanna? Is that her name?
Tadia: I would just say Lauryn Hill for sure.
Nijah: If she fucks up, she be like "Ha! That was a mistake, y'all. Can we try that again?”
Tadia: I really admire the way that she's able to storytelling within her music.
Nicole: It's just so...mm... So soothing.
Chasity: The culture of women in Hip-Hop is phenomenal. I mean, like, if we could get our young people to actually hype them up and really kind of make them, you know, famous as they used to be, I think we're going to be just fine. [END MUSIC] [TV click]
[KATHY IANDOLI INTERVIEW PART 3]
WJ: I want to kind of talk about your work as a filmmaker, as an author. Talk to us about the... I guess if I could ask first about the Netflix project.
KI: I was asked by my mentor, Dream Hampton, to be a consulting producer on Ladies First, which is out on Netflix now. [applause] Thank you!
WJ: Give it up!
KI: My favorite part of working on Ladies First, I have to say is we started it before the pandemic started, and we were putting together this short list. And then through the pandemic, that's really where the heart of my media coaching really started up with a lot of the prominent women right now. So my first two clients -- not my first two clients in general, but my first two that kind of kicked this all off -- were Latto and Coi Leray. And I said to them, "you have to include Latto and you have to include Coi Leray." And they're like, "I don't know. Because like, we, you know, we --" I brought up Saweetie, Kash Doll, all these artists and they're like, "I don't know, like, maybe this is a safe place to end." I was like, "you're going to regret this even a year from now," right? And I fought hard. It was the same fight that I had with God Save the Queens because they wanted me to end on Cardi B, and I heard the Tina Snow EP and I said, "I don't want to regret this a year from now." So I said to them, "we are ending, I'm Megan Thee Stallion" and they're like, "who is that?" And I was like, "you will definitely find out."
WJ: Mm. History has proven you more than right on that.
KI: Yeah. Thankful, right? We didn't get MC Skippy from Duluth.
WJ: Is that really...?
KI: No, I just made that up.
WJ [laughter] I'm just saying, don't make me Google MC Skippy on here, but...
KI: Shout out to MC Skippy.
WJ: Yeah, but that's a hell of a thing to forecast from you. Like now, from this perch it seems like, "duh." But if I can kind of pull you on that -- you were watching the tea leaves before for many others. Certainly in the Netflix and that sort of world. But what did you see? You know, give me more on that if you could.
KI: So for Megan, the thing that pulled me in was a song on "Tina Snow" called, "What The Fuck I Want". And as soon as she opened and she said, "First of all, I'm from Houston!", I said, "Uh oh"
WJ: This is going to be a thing.
KI: I was like, "This is good!" Right? And I was like, forget like, I mean, the rest of the EP is incredible. When I heard that and I heard her going and going, I was like, "wait a minute." I was like, "this is a rapper rapper." And then I found out that she was raised by her mother, who was a rapper. Rest in peace to Holly Wood. You know, unfortunately, her mom and my mom passed within a month of each other. And the thing that was wild is Megan was doing no interviews during that time, and my book was due, and I pleaded and I said, "listen, I will not ask her about her mother." Right? So we get in the interview and we're having this conversation. And when I saw an opportunity just to be like, "listen, I just wanted to let you know..." Because and also our grandmothers passed within like the same time. So I said to her, I was like, "you know," -- and she was just getting the freshman cover. And I had found out before, and I was like, "wait a minute", right? So I said to her, "Listen, I just want to offer my condolences to your mom. My mom died a month prior to that," and she was like, "how do we continue?" She said, "you got a book coming out. I'm at the -- we're at our heights? What do we do?" And I was like, "we try". And I'll never forget that moment because every time I see her moving, I remember that like, it's the same thing with me. Like, we're doing all of this for a much higher purpose. So it's legacy work. So for me, getting her in there was even more important because I was doing this for Holly Wood too.
WJ: Right.
KI: The same way I finished my book for my mother. Right? So I wanted it to end on this beacon of power. And watching Meg evolve is just, you know, that's great.
WJ: Well give thanks for the mothers always, and twice on Sunday. [applause] Yes. And much respect to your mother who's not with us. Can you also talk about, I know you have a BBC project coming out. Let's talk a little bit about that.
KI: Yes. I co-produced a BBC documentary on women in Hip-Hop that's coming out hopefully soon. And unfortunately, my face is all up in there too. I don't like -- like, you know, I come from the journalism era where you're supposed to be read and not seen. All this news stuff of like, even just like this, like, hi, it's just like, it's so interesting how that has to change. But, this docuseries has some incredible people as well. You know, we talked to Eve, we got Rah Digga, we got Sha-Rock, Shanté, a lot of people. And then a lot, obviously a lot of people from the UK that kind of did their thing. Because, you know, the main inspiration for Lil' Kim is a group called The Cookie Crew from the UK. And, you know, learning about them was really fascinating. I heard it from Kim first, but when I went on, we the did the BBC doc, I'm just like, "are we doing the Cookie Crew too?" because, you know.
WJ: So one last question for you is... I want to talk a little bit about, you do have this sort of unique career path. Right? Of this academic, filmmaker, researcher, journalist. Can you give like a gem? We may have some people in the audience who are listening who want to follow that and don't understand. I could be in love with Hip-Hop and follow and have this career.
KI: Right. I always abide by a mantra of the late Christopher Wallace. Stay low and keep firing.
WJ: [laughter] No doubt.
KI: That's really what it is.
WJ: You got to give me more than that.
KI: I mean, you know, attack every opportunity and make sure that the energy feels right. And when it doesn't feel right, you leave. I don't think that's exactly what he meant, but, you know. [laughter] But that's what I do. I stay low and I keep firing. And when I like what hits, I rock with it. And when I don't, I bid it farewell.
WJ: No doubt. Any other thoughts? Anything you want to kind of throw out there that we didn't get to or anything else you want to shout out that you maybe working on? We want to give you some love before we get out of here.
KI: I mean, please stay tuned for the Queen Bee memoir -- Lil' Kim – coming very soon. Yeah, you're in for a ride.
WJ: That's our show, Back To Reading Credits, our inaugural episode. Thank you very much, Kathy for sitting here and dropping some gems on us. My name is Wes Jackson, and I give thanks. Peace.
KI: Thank you.
[MUSIC BED: Slow, heavy beat]
[CREDITS]
[VO] WJ: This episode of Back To Reading Credits was produced by Khyriel Palmer, Emily Boghossian, Raynita Vaughn, Chris Torres, Gabrielle Davenport, and Antoine Hardy with help from Elyse Rodriguez Aleman, Michael Carroll, Jonathan Ortiz, and the BRIC TV production crew. Check the show notes for a full list of credits, and links to Kathy Iandoli’s work.
[VO] WJ: Back To Reading Credits is hosted by me, Wes Jackson. The show is taped at BRIC House in Downtown Brooklyn. If you like what you hear or think we missed something, comment, like, share and subscribe, and follow [at] BRIC TV on twitter and instagram, for updates.
[VO] WJ: For more information on this and all BRIC Radio podcasts, visit www [dot] bricartsmedia [dot] org [slash] podcasts
[FADE OUT MUSIC]
[BACKTEASE]
Girll Codee Member 1: Beyonce.
Girll Codee Member 2: Girll Codee.
Girll Codee Member 1: And let me tell you why both of them answers is right. Because Beyonce is a Virgo and I'm a Virgo. So yeah.