No Seriously, Don't Call It a Comeback

Or, how Lady B returned to reclaim the airwaves for old-school positivity

by Deesha Dyer

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Published: Mar 4, 2008

Michael T. Regan

Let's take it back to Sunday afternoons in the 1980s when heads from neighborhood barbershops to the Plateau hovered by the radio, rabbit ears positioned just right, station tuned in to the famous Street Beat show. The cassette was in and ready to catch tracks from Public Enemy, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, Big Daddy Kane, MC Lyte and Run DMC. Faithful listeners filled notebooks with rhymes of their own, hoping to be the next rap superstar.

For many, those four hours a week were their only exposure to the new sound making its way across the country, the freshest, dopest, flyest style of music to hit the street.

That's when the reality of hip-hop landed in Philadelphia, and the pilot was Wendy Clark, better known as radio DJ Lady B. Some call that the golden age; others refer to it as the old-school era. Everyone agrees it was an unforgettable, influential part of Philadelphia hip-hop history.

Lady B was the first female solo rap artist to record on wax — "To the Beat Y'all," in 1979 — and in 1999 was referred to as "maybe one of the most influential females in radio hip-hop history," in VIBE magazine's The VIBE History of Hip-Hop.

Not bad for an around-the-way girl from Overbrook High whose career started on a whim. "I was working at a nightclub [Kim Graves at 20th and Sansom] and the DJ asked me to get on the microphone, and as a joke I did," she laughs. "I fell in love with it instantly. Now 27 years later. ... " Highly spiritual, Lady B believes her career was written by the Creator before she even touched the mic that night.

Perhaps she could have chosen a performing career, but she has no regrets. Young Lady B interned with the legendary Mary Mason on WHAT AM while taking broadcasting classes and collecting hip-hop records. After college, she begged the WHAT staff to give her a time slot. "I was so nervous. I had to get them to accept hip-hop and take it serious. First they let me on the weekends and after it became so popular, I was put on more," she recalls. The show, Street Beat, became Philly's premier hip-hop spot.

"They were smart for putting me on. The ratings went sky-high and we broke records. I fought for hip-hop." Like when Public Enemy first came. "I didn't understand why I couldn't play them. They didn't curse or anything." Eventually she won, and Chuck D has commented on how grateful he was to Lady B for being the first one with enough heart to play their music.

In 1984, Lady B and the show moved to Power 99, where she stayed until format changes and salary negotiations prompted her to leave five years later. After that, she juggled on-air jobs between Philly and New York. When she returned to town in 1997, and then turned around and left again, Philly fans weren't having it. Among them was her manager and friend Doctashock, who spent a few years taking petitions to concerts and events, eventually collecting more than 4,000 names to bring Lady B and the missing old-school era back on the radio. The petition was sent off to radio stations regularly. Lady B was touched, but as for whether it was effective, who can say?

As of August, 2007 Lady B is back in Philly, on 107.9's Tha Basement Party where she plays — what else — old-school hip-hop and R&B. In addition, she troops up to NYC to host Sirius Satellite's Backspin channel playing some back-in-the-day cuts.

Lady B recognizes that times have changed. The baby-faced listeners once glued to her show have all grown up and have kids now glued to other shows. She calls this a double advantage: "I love taking my listeners back to when we didn't have kids and those responsibilities. That is a good feeling. I also try to address a serious topic every now and then, so the old-school listeners who are parents can take that information back to talk with their kids. The communication gap is an ugly thing right now and these kids are living in a scary world." Lady B reaches out in the community, speaking at events like Temple University's Hip-Hop 101 classes. She feels like it's her challenge to preserve what she calls "the voice of my people that has turned into a materialistic, disrespectful and lost genre of music."

"Whether it was party or political, hip-hop stood for something," she says. "There was no way you can tell me that Salt N Pepa, MC Lyte or myself weren't sexy then. We didn't have to bend over a car with a sponge. There's a place and time for everything — I just think there is too much of that in hip-hop today."

Is she angry? Not really. Disheartened? Definitely. "I want to make it clear that I am blessed to make a living off this genre and think the expansion is necessary. I am more concerned about its reputation and what it stands for."

(d_dyer@citypaper.net)

 

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