What Roxanne Shanté Learned Living With Rick James For Six Months At 16 Years Old

The world got a strange and funky gift from two icons of completely different worlds in 1988—funk lord Rick James and Roxanne Shanté, the teenage battle rapper from Queensbridge. Their collaboration was “Loosey’s Rap.” It was unexpected rebellion. But behind that unlikely pairing was a story far more explosive and suggestive. First, there is the relatively unknown saga of a 16-year-old girl living with Rick James for six months. Then there is the “Soul Train” shut down by Don Cornelius, the legendary host of the show. And, then there are the quiet, daily negotiations young Black woman contend with in a predatory industry.

“I was only 16 years old when I lived with Rick James,” Shanté told DJ Thoro and me in a exclusive interview for AllHipHop. “We recorded for two days. The rest of the six months? I was just there.”

Let that sink in.

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The Making of “Loosey’s Rap”

Released in 1988, “Loosey’s Rap” was the lead single off Rick James’ Wonderful album. The track stood out, because of Shanté’s powerful presence. She rapped hard and somewhat explicitly. At the time, Hip-Hop was still fighting for legitimacy, even though ’88 is widely regarded as a game-changing year. Nevertheless, women in rap were expected to be background players. Roxanne Shanté came in spitting venom with confidence.

The record hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Black Singles chart (now Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs), making it Rick James’ final chart-topping single. For Shanté, it was another milestone in a career that began at 14, in the shadow of New York’s Queensbridge Houses, freestyling in answer to UTFO’s “Roxanne, Roxanne.” That infamous “Roxanne Wars” battle birthed nearly 100 answer records—but none hit like Shanté’s.

Rick James, “17,” and the Troubling Parallels

The context around “Loosey’s Rap” gets even more complicated when considering Rick James’ 1984 track, “17.” In that song, he sings explicitly about his attraction to a 17-year-old girl:

“She’s only seventeen / But she’s sexy and she’s fine.”

The lyrics were controversial even then. Now that we have evolved, we have deeper, open conversations around power, age, and exploitation. In music, it has become more necessary.

Shanté says she was just a kid trying to break into the business. She didn’t understand the full implications of living with someone like Rick James. “Who sends a 16-year-old to live with Rick James?” she asked, not bitter, but aware. He did not say that anything inappropriate happened between them, but she also knows this was not right.

This wasn’t tabloid fodder. This was systemic and, most times, unspoken. This was a reflection of an industry that too often discarded its young, especially young Black women.

Coming Up In Queensbridge

Born L##### Shanté Gooden, Roxanne Shanté grew up in one of the most storied housing projects in Hip-Hop history: Queensbridge Houses in New York City. QB is the largest housing projects in America with 96 buildings and 3142 units and over 7000 people. Long before Illmatic, long before Mobb Deep, it was Roxanne who put Queensbridge on the map. But her story wasn’t all glory. A Netflix movie on her life was true her experience, but did not tell the whole story for a reason.

“I was there every day to make sure everything was absolutely accurate. she said. “In fact, we actually toned my life down. We weren’t sure if the world was really ready to hear the real stories, so we gave them bits and pieces. Nothing was embellished. I wanted moms to ask themselves, ‘Am I putting too much pressure on my oldest child? Is she getting a chance to actually be a kid?’”

Shanté was often burdened with adult responsibilities as a child. She endured abuse, poverty, and betrayal. Somehow, through it all, she managed to rise as one of the fiercest voices of rap’s golden age. The Netflix biopic “Roxanne Roxanne”, which premiered in 2017, gave viewers a glimpse into that life.

She explained. “We didn’t want to re-traumatize. We wanted to uplift.”

Protecting the Next Generation

When casting Roxanne Roxanne, Shanté made sure the actress who played her—Chanté Adams—was protected. “No nude scenes. Nothing exploitative. I didn’t want her to feel like she had to sacrifice something to make it in this business.”

Adams went on to star in A Journal for Jordan opposite Denzel Washington and continues to thrive as a rising actress in Hollywood. Shanté’s OG move is rare, but necessary.

“I know what it’s like to be young, Black, and unseen,” she said. “So I see them.”

Legacy And Lessons

So, what did she learn? I circled back and texted her about this, as it was not addressed in our original interview. Here is exactly what she said.

“I learned that the industry is ruled by emotion. It’s not just business like everyone says. If someone is jealous of someone . And the jealous person is in a higher position they will use fame or the promise of fame to destroy the other. They will hold them back or worse they will give them drugs it’s all about control. So never keep getting high with someone that says they are finished. They are only feeding it to you.”