10. Salt-N-PepaA Salt With A Deadly Pepa

I started writing lyrics because I wanted to be a rapper when I was nine, ten years old. Around that time I think I bought Salt-N-Pepa’s records, it was one of my first records and I literally wanted to look just like them. They were so exciting – like the whole flygirl thing was huge in Philadelphia, where I grew up. And so I cut my hair, got like one of those asymmetrical cuts, I got these huge gold earrings that say ‘Santi’ which I still have, I got a leather trench coat and tried to wear biker shorts – but I was so skinny at the time I would get dissed by guys. There were not a lot of women rappers: it was them, MC Lyte, and Queen Latifah, and they fucking killed it. I would literally write rap after rap to try and be like Salt-N-Pepa and that’s how I learned to write lyrics.