GETTING DOWN AND GETTING REAL A Hip Hop Singer Tells Her Story
	June 2004

by Mandy Radice
Photos by Brad Shifflett

I grew up in Tom's River, New Jersey, which is adjoining Sea Side Boardwalk on the South Shore of the Atlantic Ocean. I lived there until I was 21. The only claim to fame I ever knew of about Tom's River was that MTV used to come there for three months during the summer filming the MTV Beach House show.

Tom's River is a laid-back place with miles of white beaches, interesting beach bum characters, and a boardwalk. I enjoyed hanging out on the beach with friends and meeting the interesting people who would come there from New York. There was always something to do.

Getting with the Hip Scene
I used to write verses when I was in high school. They started out as poetry but I began putting a beat and some music behind the words. I was writing raps about my friends and the people in my life. Everyone thought those first little hip-hop things were funny and entertaining so I kept writing them.

Rap is still a relatively new performance art form and doesn't have the history of rock, for example, but when I was young a lot of hip-hop culture was available a short ride away in New York City, especially in North Jersey. I sometimes went clubbing at the very place where "Hoboken's Hero," Frank Sinatra was born.

A Hoboken nightclub had an open mike and one night I screwed up my courage and took went up on the stage. "You have one minute," the emcee said, so I did a verse that I had written: "Exclusive, illusive, my stile is abusive."

It took a lot of courage to do that, and I was really scared. I imagined that the people would laugh, but I discovered the joyful truth that the crowd really loved me! My hair was dyed blond at the time, and everyone said it was the first rap they ever heard a blond girl do. This made me want to do it some more.

I visited Northern California a lot, beginning in 2000. I met a musician named G Dubb (Gary Gamino) when I came out to visit. Dubb was always networking with musicians and producers. Someone gave him one of my demo tapes. He liked it and offered to work with me. We begin to collaborate on projects and I've actually released two CDs, so far. We distribute CDs at my shows and over the Internet through PayPal.

Northern California is a good place for my part of the business. There's more going on out here than back East. I do shows all over the area. Oakland, San Jose, San Raefel, San Francisco. Every month I do a show at a Concord place called Time Out, which provides a sports bar kind of atmosphere. It seems like sports bar would be a strange place for hip-hop, but we wake people up. Forty year-old women get up and start dancing. The music becomes accessible for everyone.

I even did a show at PeeWee Muldoons Restaurant. It was a free show and half the people in the 925 area code seemed to show up. People were parking all the way down in the Holiday Inn lot. People even came from San Francisco to see us perform. It was really fun and I got a huge response from the crowd. Even the Brentwood cowboys who were PeeWee's regular customers, started to get down when I got up.

My folks like what I do. My dad used to sing in a doo-whap band and, to some extent, I'm living out my dad's dreams. I'm picking up where he left off. My Mom actually listens to my CDs. She always asks me to send her my latest tracks. Now that I'm an adult she seems more like a sister to me.

My music focuses on life and not death. I'm trying to be positive; I don't use vulgar language. All the performers I do shows with have this positive intention to speak from our heart. Our music is a lot of fun and you can dance to it, but it has a good message too.

Swimming Against Some Dirty Currents
I have been a Christian since I was a teen and so have always resisted some kinds of mainstream music with vulgar, negative lyrics. I seek to create a more positive impression — something people can listen to and feel good about. My type of music reinforces positive themes.

Also, the world of commercial music focuses a lot of energy upon making money. I'm trying to resist that. (And judging by the balance in my checkbook, I've been pretty successful in my efforts.)

It is strange to be a woman in this industry, because rap is usually such a male-oriented phenomenon. I'm also confronting a stereotype of women through my music. I'm working against the image of Brittany Spears selling her music through sensuality and vulgarity. I encourage women to be themselves. We don't have to turn ourselves into sex objects simply to attract attention and sell albums.

In my concerts I'm also confronting the rapper look that involves a standard image and style — baggy clothes, hat on backwards, for the men. The women either copy the men or else go trampy.

I have my own style of dress, which is to mix styles in unpredictable combinations — stilettos one performance and low-top Adidas the next. Nobody can predict what I'm going to be wearing when I go onstage. Sometimes I even have a hat turned backwards. Someone said that I'm a true nonconformist performer because I refuse to conform to the hip-hop standard of non-conformity. I kind of like that.

It really is unusual to rap in clothes different than all the other performers wear. Somebody once recognized me from one of my concerts, "I know you! You're the rapper who raps in high heels."

People are always trying to get me to "fix" my look. "You should have a hat to the side. You should dress like this, or like that." I'm a little offended, actually, that people should imagine I dress like I do because I never noticed how all the other performers dress.

Resisting people's expectations like I do plays comical games with other people's heads, sometimes. I was performing at a club one night and when I came onstage the emcee who was supposed to introduce me was completely baffled by my appearance.

"What are you going to do? Sing?" he asked.

Well I just grabbed the mike and started getting down with my music and the poor guy, who was still on the stage, was just astonished. He really looked like he was getting something he didn't expect to be getting. I had fun doing that to him!

That kind of thing happens to me a lot. I get up and look like I'm going to sing. The people in the audience can't believe I'm a rapper. Then the beat comes in and I'm starting off hard and the audience can't believe what they're hearing.

Breaking the Mold and Becoming Real
"Don't let the world press you into its mold," the Bible says. I guess I'm breaking out of a lot of molds. Being a Brentwood female rapper who tries to present positive messages while performing hip-hop in modest clothes is so far off people's expectations that I'm an absolutely unique phenomenon.

My real goal is not to be unique or different from anybody else, though that is kind of cool in itself, I think... My actual purpose in my music is to be real. That's why my stage name is Realistikk. I want to look like a real person while I'm singing about real problems and presenting young people with real alternatives and solutions.

I find that women who come to my concerts give me positive feedback; they tell me that I'm really love what I'm trying to do. They like the fact that a woman can do this without acting like, singing like, or looking like a tramp. Lately more females have come out with albums. I think I'm at the front of a wave of women hip-hop singers that is simply going to keep expanding.

I would like to be famous, of course, but my main objective is to help people through my music. I want to be considered for my music, not just as a girl trying to be sexy. I want to become a role model for young women — providing music that other people can feed off of. I would like to be a positive force, showing that women aren't merely sex objects.

I would really love to become a mentor in a youth group of some kind. I go to Bible Studies every week and am trying to learn enough to become a positive influence to people on a personal level and not just to large groups of people though my songs.

My favorite song is the one I just finished, called "Ridiculous." It is an upbeat song that I think everyone would like.

Matter of seconds tearin' up ya' section
Blazing these sessions since I was a adolescent
No question keep it goin' keep ya' second guessin'
Pressin' blessin' minds but never by undressin'.
It helps while reading these words to imagine the effect of hearing them as part of a rapid-fire rap delivery. The lyrics display the literary style I work in as well as illustrate the positive values I try to convey.

My songs really do deal with life. For example, one of my songs describes the anguish and pain of a woman trying to deal with anorexia.

Grades slipping daily teachers thinkin' I'm dyslexic
They can't face the fact that I'm really anorexic
Parents wish they knew but they got no clue
Tell my friends I eat at home, and my mom I eat at school

The other lyrics try to show that this eating disorder points to a growing disorder in our society as a whole because people focus on outward appearance while neglecting to develop the quality of the spirit, which is the most important part of any person's life.

The song tries to encourage anorexic people to stop killing themselves in order to gain approval by pointing out that any approval to be gained by such a method isn't worth the sacrifice.

I'm a really a painfully shy person. I work part-time as a waitress at PeeWee's and have a difficult time, sometimes, simply taking drink orders. So it is desperately difficult for me to get up in front of people and put on a show. The only way I can do so is by relying on the presence of the Spirit to give me sufficient courage and strength. I pray before I get up in front of the people and God fills me with boldness.

My knees are trembling as I walk out into the lights, but I take the mike in my hand and suddenly experience a release. I get my strength from God at that time. "My strength comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." The Bible says. Right!

I have a passion about this. The music just seems to come out, no matter what. I sit down and begin writing and the words just come out. I feel like I'm lead; that my music helps people somehow. At least I hope and pray that I might make a positive difference in this world.