"this ain't no anti-male session / is anti-oppression-expression."

Apani B. Fly Emcee
english (Queens/NYC)

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Apani B descends from the era and a certain scene where yout*be and faceb**k still had to be established as the main platform where to promote your music as an MC. As she had her first releases in the late 90s, the 12″ Estragen/Soul Control all female collaboration and Rhyme Related, a studio album she brought out with her former crew Polyrhythm Addicts, were both pressed on vinyl with no music clips to promote the production visually.

 

It is really not so easy to come across Apani’s music on this side of the Atlantic. [Whereas she’s quite successful in Japan]. Besides her scarce presence on the internet that might be due also to her independent approach to the whole music thing that limits her radius (not necessarily in a bad way).

Digging her texts a bit deeper one might also realize sooner than later that her independent approach does not only frame Apani’s artistic identity but also how she presents herself as a woman (A million Eyes ft N’Didi; The Woman in Me).

 

Collaborationwise, Apani B the Fly MC seems to be very consistent. The list shows: Da Beatminerz, DJ Spinna and Nujabes (Strive) on the production side and – among others – Talib Kweli (Time Zone) and Jean Grae as features. To me it is a fortune but no coincidence that she and Jean Grae are getting along so well since the very early days of their respective career. Both do classic ‚underground‘ Hip Hop, have a raw style, and both rhyme about women’s empowerment as much as about street politics (Estragen, Shut The Fuck Up; The Epidemic).

 

Something more recent to get a taste of what to expect when her next album gets done (after a decade – but she promised) can be found here: deheb.bandcamp.com/track/top-of-the-block-ft-apani

Still: underrated!

 

(featuring Helixx C. Armageddon and Pri Da Honey Dark [Anomolies], Ayana Soyini [Natural Elements], What? What? [aka Jean Grae, Natural Resource], Yejide The Night Queen [Survival Sounds], Heroine [Juggaknots]) Estragen / Soul Control (12″, 1998):

Estragen: youtube.com/watch?v=TDc-QaS3XCw

Soul Control: youtube.com/watch?v=cYWI52lR6XY

The Woman in Me: youtube.com/watch?v=ReakV5BvMHE

 

(features J Treds) Narcotic (12″, 1998)

(featuring C-Rayz Walz and Rahsheed) The Specialist / Perspective (1999)

(with DJ Spinna and Talib Kweli) Time Zone (off Spinna’s Heavy Beats vol 1 EP, 1999)

 

(with Polyrhythm Addicts) Rhyme Related (1999):

1. Motion

2. Take Me Home

3. Not Your Ordinary

4. Big Phat Boom Intro

5. Big Phat Boom

6. No Limit

7. nervous Breakdown

8. Should Have Known Better

9. Not Your Ordinary – Rhythm Revolution

10. Seven Steps Behind

 

Strive / Progress (12″, 2000)

(with Jean Grae) Shut The Fuck Up (prod. by The Beatminerz off Brace 4 Impact, 2001)

(with DJ Spinna and Jean Grae) Hold (off Spinna’s Her To There, 2002)

 

Story 2 Tell (2003):

1. Assimilate

2. Spot Me ft Sara Kana

3. NIggas

4. Airtight ft. Chico’s Son, Sekou720, Lee Bougalou & Kojoe

5. Picture This

6. The Epidemic ft Jean Grae

7. Revolution live!

8. A Million Eyes ft N’Didi

9. Ichinisan ft Kojoe

10. Right the Wrongs

11. Tequila ft Frank Cilva

12. 6 pm Cool Down

13. Suckafree

14. Abracadabra

15. Stay Up ft Monet

16. No Matter (bonus)

 

Koyoi (with Shin Ski, off his Shattered Soul on a Pastel Sky, 2007)

Thank You (12″, with Nujabes, 2007)

 

 

Live at 19th Anniversary of All That Showcase at Nuyorican Poet’s Café, dec 16, 2012:

youtube.com/watch?v=Kww0Kmqff4U

 

(featuring Tara Chase) Motion (2001)

ReBirth Art Slam Promo/Call for contribution (october 2012):

youtube.com/watch?v=5pIatWXuJXU

 

Interview auf rap.de, 11. Februar 2002:

rap.de/features/c37-interview/5833-apani-b-fly-emcee

 

Estragen :

(feat. Lyric, Helixx C. Armageddon, Ayana Soyini)[Lyric]
In this hip-hop game rappers are the biggest pretenders
To me the word ‚MC‘ doesn’t know no fuckin genders
I enter braincells within the midst of beats
The ray of sound make b-boys jump out of their seats
I defeat all rumors you hear about female MC’s
Let my voice embrace your dome, like lyrics entering your soul
Like old myths that have been told, like commandments written in stone
I’m proned to break sound barriers within microphones
I’m the lyrical body that your mind will always scrape to hold
I am woman, hear me rhyme, our number’s infinite, ahead of our time
Whether it’s hands or arms, it’s all skills, not body parts or hairlines[Helixx C. Armageddon]
After pondering the word ‚reflection‘
I saw the universal tone frozen in sections
State of aggression while I meditate on human purpose
Life on the surface but I’m woman with a nervous urgence
When splurge this, I’m that ultra-feminine black Latina filled with melanin
Estragen like it was medicine, my thoughts are levellin
They call me Helixx C. Armageddon, stronger than the average
Power 36 to the 10th like Cameron
Source I lost patience with the thought
That the question is my gender’s splendor, anomaly agenda
But as I release the beast, can say my verbal piece
The woman in me, it’s the time to awaken to the East[hook: all]
We came through, now we up in here
Estragen, feel the estragen
We came through, now we up in here
Estragen, feel the estragen[Ayana Soyini]
The woman in me, like Buju B is rulin her own destiny
The woman in me knows what it’s like to be hungry
Hustlin for money when you got to get grungy
Knows the rainy days and the sunny, 360
The woman in me is mind, soul, body
The woman in me has been here for centuries
Infinitely the womb of maternity
Universally free, the woman in me
Is whatever was or will be
The woman in me is d-i-v-i-n-e
Ayana Soyini – the woman in me[What? What?]
Man, let these niggas stay talkin about rippin some tax
We tippin the stacks, my voice’ll cause the skip of your wax
Was flippin these cats since first tracks grippin my back
Fuck my womanhood, brothers kneelin be lickin my raps
What? What? motherland-born, microphone specialist
La Femme Nikita, snipe MC’s with professional hits
My feminine wits is like adrenalinie kicks
When I begin to meddle with shit your head’ll get split
I spit skits that makes niggas wanna rewind and freeze
I’m inclined to rhyme sprees […]
I serve kids with swift kicks from my Servix
Leavin brothers‘ lips open and closin their dicks[hook][Pri Da Honey Dark]
You see just like Mickey D’s I’m seein niggas fiendin for my secret sauce
Cause my rhymes they up and into you like intercourse
Just like intercourse you have venerial diseases
See, these brothers they be leeches
And they make you causin pre-lyrical ejaculations
You like to brag a lot, I’m vexed
You’re playin your petty games but yet you claim to call it sex
Try to run your game on me, you better think twice
You been eatin too much chickenheads and ( ? ) fried rice
Who I be? Pri Da Honey Dark
And if you steppin up to me you better finish what you start
Without the superficial thought and without the gun
I have the power to knock a thousand niggas back to AB1[Yejide The Night Queen]
Thoroughbred Brooklyn borough-head, mama said
I’m every woman, it’s all in me
Brothers they be callin me Night Queen
I symbolize the moon, educatin my youth
So my power consumes the seeds I push from my womb
Daughter of the water, subdivision of the cell
I live well on the vital idols
That gave birth to my mothers
Others try to claim my mysticism
But they third eye don’t widen with the ism
Or the rhythm like mine, I come a long way runnin
Escapin Babylon and havin on a gun in
One hand, the scriptures
The other hieroglyphic pictures
Of the essence
Feel my estragen
Peace

[Heroine]
I flex my double x chromosomes throughout my bones
And the skin to shed my XO-skeleton to spread Heroine
Like ( ? ) be the microphone
And carry it to Harriet Tubman, a tongue when I style free
From underground to ( ? ) John Blaze
( ? ) silver spoons
My tune sauteein from a sack, crowds react
When they extract my formula
( ? ) horizontal is how it seeps in
I get in under your skin and take over as Mrs. Fix-It
I’m keepin heads bobbin permanent
( ? ) like leavin ( ? ) in windpipes
Spiked with Heroine-inflated steel mics

[CHORUS]

[Apani B-Fly Emcee]
At the auditory peak with authority
Freely speak by our shadowy physiques in the ( ? ) purple fall
Is it a mirage or 8 genies in one bottle?
The essence of womaness, we finess because we are
Far beyond amateur, not insecure, what we’re here for
Has already be explained but unless they can be us
I trust there’s no way they can ever really understand
Whatever, can’t let those who wait down
Stop the flow of the program
Release my scheme as the anti-virus vaxine
Took infected MC’s before they get a chance to erase me