Aug 17, 2025
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Today’s compilation:
B. Girls: Live & Kicking 1987 Hip Hop
This really is a must-have item for any old school hip hop junkie out there. Back in 1987, the Bronx-based B-Boy Records, who played host to Boogie Down Productions, J-V-C Force, and for a time, the Cold Crush Brothers, too, released this compilation of exclusive gems that sought to provide a platform for a quartet of deft and highly underrated lady emcees. And the overall result, looking back, turned out to be a great and ephemeral artifact of 1980s New York hip hop.
On B. Girls: Live & Kicking, you can hear a pair of marvelous, attention-seeking diss tracks, one cast upon Roxanne Shanté by Five Star Moet, who adopts the same "It's-Still-Rock-and-Roll-to-Me"-by-Billy-Joel patter that KRS-One used that same year to vanquish his Queens-based foe, MC Shan, on "The Bridge Is Over," and the other aimed right at Salt-N-Pepa by L.A. Star, who confronts the "Push It" girls for not writing their own lyrics, which is pretty much the most shameful shit that someone can try to pull as an emcee. Later on, L.A. Star also delivers a glowing tribute to one of her favorite brands, LA Gear, which could be seen as a possible attempt to follow in the footsteps of a song that was released the year prior, "My Adidas" by Run-D.M.C.
And Sparky D is on here, too. In '85, Sparky played a part in the fabled Roxanne Wars, which was originally a vocal battle between Roxanne Shanté and The Real Roxanne, but ended up spawning a ton of responses from other rappers as well (like the aforementioned one from Five Star Moet that appears on this comp). Sparky's own effort to make a name for herself, "Sparky's Turn (Roxanne, You're Through)," which was directed at Roxanne Shanté, is known for being one of the better jabs in the Roxanne Wars, but that song's not on this comp, unfortunately. However, with her handful of contributions to this particular record, Sparky D manages to show that she had way more than just one arrow in her quiver with that Roxanne song.
Raw, fun, and long-forgotten female raps over sparse, boom-bappin' productions that were pretty neat by 1980s standards; a tasty slice of what the Big Apple's Boogie-Down Bronx sounded like thirty-plus years ago. In 2011, Traffic Entertainment Group revived B. Girls: Live & Kicking and included five additional bonus tracks, all of which came courtesy of Five Star Moet and Sparky Dee, in 1988. Some of those extras are included in the list of highlights below as well.
Highlights:
L.A. Star - "B. Girls" Sparky Dee - "Throw Down" Five Star Moet - "Moet Gets Busy (Shante Diss)" L.A. Star - "Sex" L.A. Star - "Write That Rhyme (Salt & Peppa Diss)" Sparky Dee - "Sparky's Back" L.A. Star - "LA Gear" Five Star Moet - "In Full Affect [12" Version]" Five Star Moet - "Let Me Love You [12" Version]" Sparky Dee - "Throwdown [12" Version]" Sparky Dee - "Changes (In Love) [12" Version]"
De La Soul - Me, Myself And I [Official Video HD]
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