The third episode of Rock The Bells docuseries, Flowers, follows MC Sha-Rock, Hip-Hop’s first female MC, as she makes history as the first woman to receive the key to The Bronx and celebrates her annual Sha-Rock Day.
The “That’s The Joint” MC explains her early position in Hip-Hop in the episode. “I was always on the front lines with the best of the best,” she says. “[I was with] Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 4, The Furious 5, on the front lines with the Funky 4 and the Funky 4 + 1. I got my start Uptown in The Bronx in 1977.”
Sha-Rock’s Enjoy and Sugar Hill Records labelmate, Scorpio of Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5, described seeing a female MC in the early male-dominated days of Hip-Hop as something extremely rare.
“To see a sister like Sha-Rock that could go toe to toe with everybody else was amazing,” he says. “It was almost like seeing a UFO.”
Scorpio also credits Sha with using the “shout out” as a term of endearment. “She broke down so many barriers by giving other crews a shout out,” he remembers. “MCs and crews never spoke to each other, although they look at it now like old school crews got along on some ‘we are the world shit,’ but we didn’t even speak. Her shouting out other crews made me comfortable enough going into their territory because I saw that love and respect was there.”
