The Lady Tigra

The Lady Tigra (nee Rachel de Rougemont) was born of a Haitian mother and French father in New York City, where she lived until the age of 14. Her family relocated to the pastel-drenched land of “Sonny” Crockett and “Rico” Tubbs, also the heart of the burgeoning Miami bass scene (you guessed it – Miami, Florida), in 1984. Who knows what would have become of the Lady Tigra if this fateful relocation didn’t occur; but, luckily for us, it did and her immersion into the Miami bass scene was as quick as you can say “Grab It” (the Lady Tigra and high school friend Bunny D’s (nee Elana Cager) – collectively known as L’Trimm – first Hot Productions single from 1988). Fame came instantaneously for L’Trimm. Their Billboard Top 40 hit “Cars With the Boom” – from their 1988 debut LP Grab It! – also proved to be their sole Top 40 hit, earning them categorization as a “one-hit wonder.” L’Trimm released Drop That Bottom on Atlantic Records in 1989 which earned them The Source’s crown of “Hip-Hop Goddesses of the Month.” After a long-running legal dispute with Hot Productions over the duo’s diminishing artistic input and control, L’Trimm’s producers took the reigns of the third L’Trimm album (Groovy) after the Lady Tigra and Bunny D abandoned the project. Groovy was transformed into something loosely resembling house music ala C+C Music Factory and released on Atlantic Records in 1991. It flopped, proving the artists knew best. The Lady Tigra eschewed her career in music, returning to New York City where she worked as general manager of the nightclub Plaid (which then turned into the nightclub Spa). Fate, however, would intervene once again. The Lady Tigra was introduced to singer-songwriter and producer Berko by mutual friends. The Lady Tigra and Berko started making music together “just for fun.” Creative sparks flew, and the phoenix rose from the ashes; the Lady Tigra was reborn – this time around without Bunny D (who is married and has four children). In 2006, the Lady Tigra signed with High Score Records, relocated to Los Angeles (“giving LA a little taste of the ‘T’”) and commenced recording of her first album since L’Trimm’s demise. Twenty years after the release of Grab It!, the Lady Tigra is primped and primed to once again add some much needed bass (‘bass on the bottom, bass on the top / bass for your mama, bass for your pop / bass so strong it will make you swell / and you’ll be shaking your booty like a mademoiselle’ – “Bass on the Bottom”) to the unsuspecting world with Please Mr. Boombox. With Berko at the helm as primary beat-master and producer, Please Mr. Boombox drifts seamlessly from retro-80s, bass-heavy grooves (“Bass on the Bottom” and “Please Mr. Boombox”) to elaborately sculpted, modern soundscapes (“Sad Day Song” and “Cauchemars”). At 37 years of age, the Lady Tigra has not lost her super-keen panache for penning playful and sassy lyrics over bootylicious (thank you Oxford English Dictionary for recently adding that one!) beats – most noticeably on her Pinkberry frozen yogurt jingle, “Sorry Ice Cream.” On the eve of the release of Please Mr. Boombox, the Lady Tigra chatted with Los Angeles Journal about the power of the ladies in hip-hop, the provocative sexuality of her lyrics, and politics. Los Angeles Journal: How have the hip-hop and, more specifically, bass scenes changed since 1988? Lady Tigra: Back then [in 1988], Miami bass was a completely new phenomenon. It didn’t have as much international acceptance or attention as it does now. Being girls and breaking into the Miami bass sound, and being accepted in Miami then bringing it to the entire country – there weren’t that many women in hip-hop to begin with and there certainly weren’t that many in bass. Now, [bass] has had a renaissance and at least 50 percent of the artists are women…such as Peaches and M.I.A. It’s not as difficult to gain acceptance now, as it was in the 80s. LAJ: There must be a huge difference being a female hip-hop or bass vocalist now compared to the late 80s… LT: Back then we had Queen Latifah and Salt-N-Pepa. Those were the big names we turned to in terms of women in hip-hop…you could name them all off on one hand…MC Lyte and Roxanne Shante. Women were the anomaly, not the norm. Now we have so many girls that are making hip-hop that are being accepted by men as being as good as men. LAJ: On the subject of femininity, your lyrics seem to tow a fine line between provocative sexuality and feminism. LT: The idea of being sexy isn’t demeaning to me. I try not to use my sexuality in a way that is demeaning. I keep it playful, yet tasteful. I think that you can have a brain and look good at the same time. Little girls that like to put on lipstick and dress up in adult clothes, also like to read the Harry Potter books. They don’t have to choose between one and the other. LAJ: How have your lyrics changed since L’Trimm? LT: Back then our issues were different and our tastes were different. [Hip-hop lyrics] were a lot more accessible. You talked about your sneakers and you talked about your radio, everyone had a radio and everyone had sneakers. Now, it’s all about Crystal and Lexus’s. Jay-Z is talking about Euros now because the dollar is so weak. It’s not as realistically accessible to everybody. Not everyone can get into that club and have Crystal or lavishly flourish a wad of Euros. So therefore what kids want to be now is not as realistic or accessible as it was back then. LAJ: What is your approach to lyrics? LT: Back with L’Trimm, I always preferred to get the beat first and hear the story that the beat was telling. Some beats are more somber, some are more optimistic. Take it from there. Pick up the repetition. Sometimes that becomes the chorus. Sometimes you’re in the bathroom and all you have is a piece of toilet paper to write your idea on. Now my process has changed because I’ve changed and I’m older. I’m not cruising the malls and looking at guys’ cars…as much [Laughs]; but I still speak about what is relevant to me, which was what was really pure about where Bunny D. and I came from. We spoke about what was in our immediate surroundings. We touched on what was in a lot of girls’ immediate surroundings. LAJ: Several recent reviews mention that Please Mr. Boombox contains two French language songs, but isn’t “The Fall Of Tchitchi From (So High)” a hybrid of French and Creole? LT: Yes. It goes in and out of French Creole and English. That is my little bit of mischief [Laughs]! You would have to be Haitian to understand all of the lyrics… but “Cauchemars” is all in French. LAJ: So, what is that sample at the end of “Cauchemars”? LT: That’s Berko making monster noises and me screaming my voice off…and Berko dropping change on the table. The song is about nightmares; it’s like a happy beatbox monster that eats me at the end of the song [Laughs]. LAJ: That’s my favorite song on Please Mr. Boombox. LT: A lot of people like it. It’s funny, because it’s in French people don’t really understand what I’m saying. It’s cool that it transcends the language barrier. LAJ: I’ve been listening to a lot of French female pop vocalists from the 1960s such as Claudine Longet, Françoise Hardy and Brigitte Bardot…I definitely got the same vibe from “The Fall Of Tchitchi From (So High)” and “Cauchemar.” LT: Me too! My writing in French is really influenced by the stuff I grew up listening to. In the past few years I have been really into the French singers like Edith Piaf – stuff that my mom played around the house. Also, they have that femininity and sexuality there without it being dirty. There’s no “poon” [Laughs]. LAJ: What issues are important to you? LT: I was very influenced by Rakim and Slick Rick because of their storytelling, Public Enemy because of their political stance, and MC Lyte because of her power and enthusiasm in talking about women’s issues – their lyrics and energy still direct where I’m going right now. I’d like to see the party again and I’d like to see people thinking again. I’d like to see that kind of unity. We’re at war and people are losing their houses. It is about time for us to all throw our hands up and say: “it’s time for the party!” LAJ: How has the recent political climate affected your songwriting? LT: Throughout the writing process of Please Mr. Boombox there were political songs that didn’t make the album. They will, however, eventually pop up as singles or web-exclusives and stuff like that. It’s distressing to think that a country [the United States] that has always been looked at as benevolent; has, in under a decade, created generations of people that will perceive it as [a country of] the new Nazis. That 8-year-old kid who lost his entire family one afternoon because something fell on his house is going to have grandkids one day and they’re all going to look at us as the people that did that to their ancestors and took all of them away. It’s really alarming and distressing to me; everything that our grandparents worked for so that their kids (our parents) could have better lives here in this country. And they did succeed. Whereas our parents worked all their lives for us to have better lives and we might not even get Social Security checks when we retire. But I’m excited about the conversations that are opening up now between people like Obama and Huckabee. We’re a divided country, the far right and far left; but the polls show that we’re sick of it and we want to go back to being the United States. We want to go back to being benevolent; doing humanitarian work, artists getting together to write the new “We Are the World” – stuff like that. [We should] bring light to issues rather than dropping bombs on people.