That’s Using Your Noggin

There is no need to reiterate the industry’s shady practices, many of our favorite rappers, and our favorite rapper's favorite rappers have all been victim to these policies. More often than not they end up being relegated to has-beens with long arms and shallow pockets. Enter Roxanne Shante, a groundbreaking female rapper at age 14 and an original Juice Crew member. Like most young artists she was fed the shit end of the stick by her record label, and after releasing two albums, dejected with her situation, she remembered a clause in her contract with Warner Music that required the label to foot the bill for her education. Long story short, as of the year 2001 Roxanne Shante added the distinction of Dr. to her list of accolades after receiving a PHD in psychology. Now what should be taken from this situation is that rappers especially those that aspire to become rappers should actually READ their contracts and not leave it up to their lawyers. At the end of the day you [the rapper] and not the lawyer is one of the parties on the contract. Another thing to be noted is why this is news now in 2009 and not back then. Even if Roxanne wanted to keep this achievement under wraps, (not very likely) isn’t it the job of media outlets to investigate and report such commendable findings. I guess rappers really catch no slack; They (Media Outlets of all demographics) focus on the negative attention Do something positive, and never get mentioned.