Black Women in the News
The First Queen Of Hip-Hop Is Ready To Tell Her ‘Me Too’ Story
Lolita Gooden was a mere 14 years old when she assumed the moniker “Roxanne Shanté” and ascended to superstardom in 1984. Having spent the earliest years of her teens obliterating rap battle foes in her neighborhood of Queens, New York, Shanté’s hit single, “Roxanne’s Revenge,” projected her beyond normal girlhood into a world of celebrity far more surreal and sinister.
An upcoming Netflix biopic, “Roxanne, Roxanne,” traces the life of Roxanne Shanté and highlights the ways in which an industry rife with mendacious men thwarted a budding star.
In advance of the film’s debut, Shanté talked with HuffPost about the pressures we place on girls and our collective failure to protect them.
I’m curious how this film came about. I know Pharrell, Forest Whitaker and a number of others played a role in producing this, so how did they reach out to you?
I came in contact with [producers] Mimi Valdez and Nina Bongiovi, and they’re the ones who actually set the wheels in motion. This project could not have even been set in motion without those great women approaching me and saying, “We were looking for you and we…
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