Split Personality (The Remix) - UTFO

Listen to more by this artist

The Roxanne Wars began with a record called Roxanne Roxanne by UTFO

UTFO's Kangol Kid and Doctor Ice had been a breakdance duo who eventually became back-up dancers for Whodini. They formed UTFO with Educated Rapper and Mixmaster Ice and signed to Select Records as the labels first rap act. Select wasn't specifically a rap label but it would go on to release a number of notable hip hop/rap hits. For UTFO's second single they were paired up with Full Force. According to wikipedia "Full Force brought in New York's sound and sampling wizard, Gary Pozner [who recorded a few records for Select in the mid-1980s], to help create the sounds and the beats. This was one of the first instances of the new sampling machine, the E-mu Emulator, used on a commercially released record." One of the beats Roxanne Roxanne uses is Billy Squire's Big Beat which by 1984 was already a hip hop staple

Roxanne Roxanne was a big hit for UTFO and Select Records, then...

Legend has it Lolita Shanté Gooden is on her way to the laundrette in Queenbridge when Marley Marl calls her from his apartment window and asked her to drop what she's doing and rap over a beat he was currently scratching over. Marl worked at the factory that made Sergio Valente jeans and promised to get her a pair if she did this rap for him. Lolita Gooden was 13 at the time but already known as a local battle rapper. Battle rappers would rap against an opponent on the street and Gooden despite her young age was considered one of the best (there's an example below). When she got to Marley Marl's apartment she heard the beat he was playing was the instrumental version of UTFO's Roxanne Roxanne, as it was a hit and Gooden was familiar with the record. She records a freestyle in one take over the instrumental track putting herself in Roxanne role (and giving herself her stage name). With that done Lolita Gooden carries on with her laundry

It's often repeated Marley Marl was unknown at the time but he'd already been associated with a handful of records by artists like CD III, Glen Adams, Captain Rock/Aleem, and his own discovery Dimples D. He was also deejay for Mr. Magic on New York's first all rap radio show WBLS's Rap Attack. It was on Rap Attack that he played his recording of Lolita Gooden's freestyle over UTFO's Roxanne Roxanne instrumental now called Roxanne's Revenge by Roxanne Shanté

It was an instant success and got an unprecedented amount of requests from callers into the show, I think on that first show it was played a lot more than once. Roxanne's Revenge was put out on 12" by Pop Art, I think the version (known as the Street Version) released was recorded off the radio - who knows what the story is there!

Roxanne Shanté - Roxanne's Revenge

UTFO had had their egos kicked in by a 14-year-old girl. Roxanne Roxanne had been there first hit, they'd been riding high and now a 14-year-old girl was stealing their thunder by selling more records then them with their own tune. Shanté and Marley Marl really rubbed it in their faces. Select Records sued over the use of the instrumental and Roxanne's Revenge had to be re-recorded to a new backing track, they could still use the same beat patterns because they'd been sampled in the first place and the legal system didn't have a great deal to say about using recordings by other artists and sampling yet

Roxanne Shanté - Roxanne's Revenge re-record

Roxanne's Revenge is what we call an answer record, there had been plenty answer records before but they don't usually go on and on back and forth, in this case they did. UTFO decided to reply with their own Roxanne (Elease Jack) who they called the REAL Roxanne (Elease Jack was the first Real Roxanne and recorded only one record). If Roxanne was going to exist, be more than the two dimensional Roxanne of the original record, UTFO/Full Force were going to control her. It's a weird record written and produced by Full Force over the original Roxanne Roxanne instrumental, they diss themselves for money because the 14-year-old Roxanne Shanté was selling more records than them

Roxanne (with UTFO) - The Real Roxanne

Another feature of Roxanne's Revenge is Marley Marl's scratching so Full Force get Howie Tee in to make a scratch version Roxanne's Back Side (cute name huh!). Hitman Howie Tee would give Select a few hits like Just Buggin' by Whistle and Bang Zoom (Baby Let's Go-Go) by The Real Roxanne (performed by the second Real Roxanne, Adelaida Martinez)

Roxanne's Back Side it's actually really good

In 1985 Roxanne Shanté and Marley Marl release two more answer records aimed at UTFO, first Queen Of Rox (Shante' Rox On) which tells the story of how Roxanne's Revenge was made then, more importantly, Bite This

This was the beginning of the first rap BEEF

Here's an example of Shanté in a battle (albeit a formalised version infant of an audience), it's for the MC World Supremacy Belt at the New Music Seminar 1985 against 23-year-old Busy Bee (Shanté is 15). Shanté looses because of Kurtis Blow, she says it's the first time she cried in public. She later confronted Kurtis Blow over why he marked her down and he replied it was because she was a girl

“‘At that time, rappers had just started getting major deals, they had just started getting accepted into mainstream,’” she remembers him telling her. “‘For the sake of hip-hop, there was no way that a 15-year old girl could be the best. There was just no way that we could do that, Shante.’”

“And so that was that,” she said. “A lot of times, they don’t want the best to be a woman.” - vice