Friday Hoyden: Roxanne Shante

by Guest Hoyden on August 28, 2009

in education, exploitation, social justice

About your Guest Hoyden: Jo Tamar is a human rights lawyer who blogs about things that catch her eye relating to feminism and equality generally.

Editor’s note: the story below has since been revealed as factually incorrect. Roxanne Shante has allegedly been misrepresenting huge chunks of her music industry and educational history. See comments below for details.

This post really warmed my heart.

Roxanne Shante – a teen rapper in the 1980s – had a contract with Warner Music. It included a clause that the company would pay for Shante’s education for the rest of her life.

(via)

Roxanne Shante was a young rap star. When the music stopped, she didn't miss a beat.

She made them pay up. Including for her PhD.

That’s pretty fucking awesome.

h/t PostBourgie (the same link as above); see also the cross-post of the PostBourgie post at Bitch Ph.D. and the NY Daily article they both link to.

cross-posted

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Tagged as: activism, activism against racism, awesomeness, education, feminism, Friday Hoydens, teaspoons

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This article was written by guest hoyden

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{ 6 comments }

1 Chally August 28, 2009 at 12:35 pm: I heard about this earlier today. A much needed lift for me. Well done, Dr Shante.
2 Jo Tamar August 28, 2009 at 2:32 pm: Yeah, I just can’t get over how awesome this is :)

Something I probably should have said in the post, too, was that it seems to me that there is a SECOND Hoyden in this story. From the NY Daily article linked in the post:

Shante found an arm-twisting ally in Marguerita Grecco, the dean at Marymount Manhattan College. Shante showed her the contract, and the dean let her attend classes for free while pursuing the money.

“I told Dean Grecco that either I’m going to go here or go to the streets, so I need your help,” Shante recalls. “She said, ‘We’re going to make them pay for this.’”

Grecco submitted and resubmitted the bills to the label, which finally agreed to honor the contract when Shante threatened to go public with the story.
3 tigtog August 28, 2009 at 5:00 pm: I noticed that when I was reading the story, Jo. Dean Grecco certainly deserves credit for supporting Shante’s education so relentlessly.
4 Jo Tamar September 3, 2009 at 11:25 am: Oops.

Looks like I wuz had:
http://postbourgie.com/2009/09/02/if-it-sounds-too-good-to-be-true/
http://www.slate.com/id/2227090/

Oh well. Nice story, anyway.
5 Chally September 3, 2009 at 2:13 pm: I just heard that. *sigh*
6 tigtog September 4, 2009 at 8:48 am: Thanks, Jo. I’ll add an editorial note to the post.

I’m astonished that she thought she could get away with such a story in the internet age. She must have known that someone would chase it up eventually.