Lights, Cameras & Less Rappin'?

12/30/1998 6:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Billy Johnson Jr

M.C. Lyte's rap and film careers butt heads on October 15. A European tour is in place, but a possible role in an upcoming film could require the heralded female MC to begin filming the same week. However, on this September afternoon the petite, 10-year rhyme veteran sits in an Elektra conference room, determined not to let a potential scheduling conflict get her flustered. "I'm like, 'You know what?'" she repeats an earlier response to her perplexed dad, "'Let me get the part first, and then we can worry about the rest. We might be worrying for nothing. Supposed I don't get it?'"

The above scenario is typical for M.C. Lyte. You see, even though fitting acting into her schedule hasn't been easy, Lyte wouldn't mind getting a few serious acting gigs under her belt. She's been taking acting lessons since 1995, and has already landed parts on Moesha and Nickelodeon's Cousin Skeeter as well as the lead in the independent film Train Ride. Lyte's crossing her fingers, hoping that Train Ride, which will have a run at this January's Sundance Film Festival, will be picked up quickly; New Line Cinema has already shown interest.

Taking a role in an independent film might not seem too appealing for an established artist with three gold singles--"Ruffneck," "Keep On, Keepin' On" and "Cold Rock A Party"--to her credit. But the respected MC would rather take on a quality script for a low-budget film than a mediocre one backed by a big-name production company. This issue brings a smile to Lyte's face, as she laughs about being paid "scale." "I've worked too hard and I've studied," she explains. "I'm not one of those people who just looks at acting and don't see it as a craft that has to be developed. Just like you can't wake up one day and want to rap; it's something that has to be instilled in you and to some degree rehearsed."

As October 15 rolls around, Lyte is the midst of her European tour, traveling through Germany, England, Holland, France and Brussels. She still hasn't received any news on the film, but she's not vexed, as sales for her sixth album, Seven & Seven, released in August, will benefit from the touring.

It's already Lyte's second time in Europe since the release of Seven & Seven, which she says has more copies overseas than in the U.S. She was actually in Europe, fresh from the filming of Train Ride, when Seven & Seven came out in the States. Although the rapper also known as Ms. Lana Moorer looks forward to touring in the U.S., she admits she's been spoiled by audiences in Europe, where she headlines her own tours.

"I never headlined my own tours [in the States]," she begins. "Yeah, I headlined my own spot dates, but a tour?" In the past, Lyte did earn spots on popular U.S. tours with acts like Kris Kross and Janet Jackson, and while those tours helped expose her to new audiences, she knew that most of the audience wasn't there to see her. "'Sit your ass...'" she mimics her reactions to apathetic concertgoers, "'What? Refreshments? I'm performing.' It's like, 'I give the utmost respect to my audience, and I give my all to you because I want to satisfy you--as a consumer--and you're walking around trying to get some popcorn?'"

Lyte's attentive European audiences have encouraged her to explore new ground. Her American fans may have assumed that her stint on MTV's Unplugged was a fluke, but the younger sister to Audio Two members Milk & Giz regularly plays with a live band and background singers when performing abroad. She's still not sure that her fans in her homeland will welcome a band setup, so she plans to gradually incorporate it into her domestic act.

Lyte also went out on a limb with Seven & Seven's first single, "I Can't Make A Mistake," a song she describes as "ahead of its time," referring to the song's futuristic synthesizers and stuttering rhyme style. Indeed, it was a drastic switch from the R&B-tinged hit singles "Keep On, Keepin' On" and "Cold Rock A Party, but Lyte felt Foxy Brown's "Get Home" and Queen Pen's "All My Love" had left little room for another R&B-styled record from a female rapper. However, Lyte's fans should not despair: her next single, "It's All Yours" featuring Gina Thompson, will put Lyte back on track in the U.S. with its catchy chorus, flat guitars and the rapper's classic "Cram To Understand" spin on relationships. Lyte even plans to record a Spanish-language version of the song for her fans in Spain.

Still, she has more interests to explore: writing children's books, doing cartoon voiceovers and unveiling her website, mc-lyte.com. So with all of these Lyte activities--not forgetting acting and performing with a live band--some may wonder: is hip-hop's favorite female lyricist undergoing a major career transition? Well, Lyte admits that when she was 16, she said she would not be rapping by age 25, and now she's 27. "It's hard," she muses about her efforts to fulfill all of her interests, "because all throughout your career you have these other things that interest you, but you can't really dive into them the way you want to because you have an obligation to your fans, to the record label, and to yourself. So you end up not giving it your all in the different categories." Lyte learned this lesson the hard way, having to close her New York restaurant, Harlem Café, because she was unable to devote enough time to running it. Today, however, she's got a better grasp on her projects, and she's willing to make things work, even if that means sacrificing some of her rap projects.