Marlanna Evans grew up in a small North Carolina town with a population of about 2,000 people.
“Everybody knows everybody,” she told me on “Renaissance Man” of Snow Hill, North Carolina. “Two-parent home. I used to be one among five kids, an entire bunch of cousins running around barefooted, you realize, entering into the woods and fishing. And I used to be a tomboy. I loved basketball. I loved hip-hop.”
But Rapsody, Marlanna’s alter ego, is now officially Hollywood. The Grammy-nominated rapper, emcee and storyteller worked on the approaching of age film “On the Come Up,” which was based on the Angie Thomas book of the identical name. The film tells the story of Bri, a teen rapper trying to beat the world of underground rap battles. Rapsody wrote music for the Sanaa Lathan-directed movie and in addition coached its young star Jamila C. Gray, who plays Bri. Fittingly, Rapsody was one among Thomas’ original inspirations for the book.
“So to work on it’s an actual full-circle moment. But I related to her story a lot because I saw myself in her. And I believe a variety of artists will,” the 39-year-old said.
It’s quite a come up for this country girl, who got hooked on hip-hop after hearing MC Lyte’s “Poor Georgie,” which dropped in 1991. But she didn’t take a stab at rapping until she attended NC State.
“We didn’t really have exposure to the humanities in our way or we didn’t know anybody … That was foreign to me,” she said. “So, you realize, it wasn’t anything I saw as attainable. So it really was only a dream. Everybody thought I used to be going to go to school and play basketball and do whatever it was after that. But once I got to school after which got into [rap], I kept it a secret.”
But secrets rarely remain under wraps, especially inside families.
“I had a younger cousin and he was at my mom’s house and he was listening to one among my
songs. [My mother] said, ‘What you listening to?’ He was like, ‘Marlanna.’ She was shocked,” Rapsody said of her mother, who then threw her support behind her daughter.
After college, Rapsody really tried to make it within the rap game and was so poor, she was splitting McDonald’s meals along with her friends. None of that impressed her sister, who kicked her out because she didn’t have an actual job, so she slept within the studio at times. Producer ninth Wonder gave her a shot and featured her on his second album. She was officially in the sport and plugging away, “annoying” everyone on Twitter, spamming users like a bot, along with her work.
“I look back and I used to be like, I do know people hated us … That was so corny,” she said of her early social media strategy.
She has since been signed to Roc Nation and has collaborated with the industry’s top names, including Kendrick Lamar and the late Mac Miller, to call a number of. And he or she has earned some impressive endorsements. Dr. Dre told her she was his favorite female rapper.
“That’s when it really set in. I’m like, all right, we here now,” she told me.
Dre was removed from her only male admirer within the industry. In actual fact, she said her biggest supporters were dudes, including Mac, Kendrick, Big Chris, ninth Wonder and Ab-Soul.
“Men were very, very supportive. A majority of my fan base were men,” she said, adding that Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu were also influences.
But Rapsody — who’s a purist and doesn’t fit the mold of today’s female rappers like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion who ooze sexuality — did discover a degree of prejudice within the industry.
“When it got here to the business of music, it was hard to be respected as a lady who rapped like I rapped,” she said. “In a time where sex was selling. And there’s nothing improper with that. I really like women that love their body. But that was the one narrative that was being pushed.
“So it was like, making an area for me, allowing people to respect me for who I used to be and never just throw me right into a bunch of lists with other women,” she said, adding that she desired to be known as an artist, not only relegated to the feminine category.
Rapsody has needed to fight hard to go “against the trends of what this business was. And the narratives that it was pushing.”
To borrow from Mr. Sinatra, she did it her way. And it sure is working.
Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the faculty hoops world within the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons within the NBA, before transitioning right into a media personality. Rose is currently an analyst for “NBA Countdown” and “Get Up,” and co-host of “Jalen & Jacoby.” He executive produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the creator of the best-selling book, “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker, and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.
Marlanna Evans grew up in a small North Carolina town with a population of about 2,000 people.
“Everybody knows everybody,” she told me on “Renaissance Man” of Snow Hill, North Carolina. “Two-parent home. I used to be one among five kids, an entire bunch of cousins running around barefooted, you realize, entering into the woods and fishing. And I used to be a tomboy. I loved basketball. I loved hip-hop.”
But Rapsody, Marlanna’s alter ego, is now officially Hollywood. The Grammy-nominated rapper, emcee and storyteller worked on the approaching of age film “On the Come Up,” which was based on the Angie Thomas book of the identical name. The film tells the story of Bri, a teen rapper trying to beat the world of underground rap battles. Rapsody wrote music for the Sanaa Lathan-directed movie and in addition coached its young star Jamila C. Gray, who plays Bri. Fittingly, Rapsody was one among Thomas’ original inspirations for the book.
“So to work on it’s an actual full-circle moment. But I related to her story a lot because I saw myself in her. And I believe a variety of artists will,” the 39-year-old said.
It’s quite a come up for this country girl, who got hooked on hip-hop after hearing MC Lyte’s “Poor Georgie,” which dropped in 1991. But she didn’t take a stab at rapping until she attended NC State.
“We didn’t really have exposure to the humanities in our way or we didn’t know anybody … That was foreign to me,” she said. “So, you realize, it wasn’t anything I saw as attainable. So it really was only a dream. Everybody thought I used to be going to go to school and play basketball and do whatever it was after that. But once I got to school after which got into [rap], I kept it a secret.”
But secrets rarely remain under wraps, especially inside families.
“I had a younger cousin and he was at my mom’s house and he was listening to one among my
songs. [My mother] said, ‘What you listening to?’ He was like, ‘Marlanna.’ She was shocked,” Rapsody said of her mother, who then threw her support behind her daughter.
After college, Rapsody really tried to make it within the rap game and was so poor, she was splitting McDonald’s meals along with her friends. None of that impressed her sister, who kicked her out because she didn’t have an actual job, so she slept within the studio at times. Producer ninth Wonder gave her a shot and featured her on his second album. She was officially in the sport and plugging away, “annoying” everyone on Twitter, spamming users like a bot, along with her work.
“I look back and I used to be like, I do know people hated us … That was so corny,” she said of her early social media strategy.
She has since been signed to Roc Nation and has collaborated with the industry’s top names, including Kendrick Lamar and the late Mac Miller, to call a number of. And he or she has earned some impressive endorsements. Dr. Dre told her she was his favorite female rapper.
“That’s when it really set in. I’m like, all right, we here now,” she told me.
Dre was removed from her only male admirer within the industry. In actual fact, she said her biggest supporters were dudes, including Mac, Kendrick, Big Chris, ninth Wonder and Ab-Soul.
“Men were very, very supportive. A majority of my fan base were men,” she said, adding that Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu were also influences.
But Rapsody — who’s a purist and doesn’t fit the mold of today’s female rappers like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion who ooze sexuality — did discover a degree of prejudice within the industry.
“When it got here to the business of music, it was hard to be respected as a lady who rapped like I rapped,” she said. “In a time where sex was selling. And there’s nothing improper with that. I really like women that love their body. But that was the one narrative that was being pushed.
“So it was like, making an area for me, allowing people to respect me for who I used to be and never just throw me right into a bunch of lists with other women,” she said, adding that she desired to be known as an artist, not only relegated to the feminine category.
Rapsody has needed to fight hard to go “against the trends of what this business was. And the narratives that it was pushing.”
To borrow from Mr. Sinatra, she did it her way. And it sure is working.
Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the faculty hoops world within the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons within the NBA, before transitioning right into a media personality. Rose is currently an analyst for “NBA Countdown” and “Get Up,” and co-host of “Jalen & Jacoby.” He executive produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the creator of the best-selling book, “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker, and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.
