Queens’ very own Roxanne Shanté, born Lolita Shanté Gordon, will be inducted into Berklee College’s inaugural Hip-Hop Hall of Fame on Nov. 28 in Boston, Mass., at the school’s performance center by its Africana Studies Division.
Born in the Queensbridge Houses on March 8, 1970, she would go on to become the musical genre’s first mainstream female artist, thanks to popularizing diss tracks via her songs like “Roxanne’s Revenge,” according to The Sunday Times, a British newspaper.
She started her career at the age of 14 and was a member of the hip-hop group Juice Crew.
The New York Times called her the “Queen of Rap” in 1989, and singer, songwriter, rapper and producer Pharrell Williams, alongside Academy Award-winning actor and producer Forest Whitaker, co-produced the critically acclaimed biopic “Roxanne Roxanne” in 2017.
“With over 35 years in the music industry as a writer, producer, and platinum-selling artist and performer, I can now add accomplished and acknowledged musician because of Berklee,” Shanté told the Chronicle via email.
She is currently touring around the country and will be in New York at the Apollo Theater next Monday.
Emmett G. Price, dean of the Africana Studies Division at Berklee, is excited about the induction.
“Berklee is the world’s preeminent institution of contemporary music, dance, and theater; of course we are going to celebrate hip-hop in grand fashion with an unforgettable concert and the launch of the Berklee Hip-Hop Hall of Fame,” Price told the Chronicle via email. “What a tremendous privilege and a deep honor to have the legend herself, Roxanne Shanté, join us for this historic and monumental occasion.”
