MC Lyte

An around-the-way girl who's always dissed the gangsta life from a street perspective, her greatest charm is the ordinariness that's also her biggest liability. In 1991, with Latifah and Monie Love passing her by, she failed to go pop with Act Like You Know; in 1993, with Latifah and Monie Love falling off, she's acting like she knew: "Never ever have I ever said I was good-lookin'/Just one bad-ass bitch from Brooklyn." But finally she's hitting her self-conceived rhymes and beats with some regularity--on the turf-proud "Brooklyn," the jilted-and-glad "Lil Paul," the bloodied-and-unbowed "I Go On," the jovial "F--k That M-----f--kin' Bulls--t." And on the boy-loving "Ruffneck," over a male chorus cheering like the studio was a football terrace, Lyte raps the praises of her hardcore boyfriend. "Fiddling with his d*ckh**d" or sneaking away from the cops, he's always rude and not always what he pretends to be, but when she's got a problem: "He'll be there/Right by my side with his ruffneck tactics." I hope so. Because they're going to need each other. (Grade - A-)