Mic Check: The Queen of Rap

It’s the dawn of hip-hop and 15-year-old Roxanne Shanté is the best battle rapper in Queensbridge NYC. She spits out a hit record in the time it takes for her laundry to dry, for real. She’s bold, controversial and everyone wants to take her down at the “MC Battle for World Supremacy.” This story contains explicit language, sensitive listeners please be advised. A giant thank you to the now Grammy-winning, forever "Queen of Rox," Roxanne Shanté for sharing her story with Snap! You can find Roxanne on IG @imroxanneshante. She also hosts a daily show on Sirius XM's Channel 43 Rock the Bells Radio. Tune in! Produced Justin Kramon, edited by Nancy López, original score by Lauryn Newson. Season 16 - Episode 58 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 1:21Speaker 01

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• 1:56Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so the other day, I'm watching Michigan football with some new friends. And this is California, but we are all from Michigan. So we're talking about the home state, the Great Lakes, the car culture. We talk about one of my favorite films, Eight Mile with Eminem. Detroit, dark club, the crowd is roaring, the DJs are cutting. Poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Eminem, our hero, he steps to the mic and is rapping for his life against rich swaggering enemies. All Michiganders love this film. So for the fellas, I spit my favorite Eminem line, where M starts clowning on his bully. He says, "But I know something about you.

• 2:41Glynn Washington?

  You at the Cranbrook, that's a private school. What's the matter, dog? You embarrassed? Supposed to be against it, but your real name's Clarence. And Clarence lives at home with both parents. And Clarence's parents have a real nice marriage." Crack it up!

• 2:58Glynn Washington?

  But they all just kind of looked sheepish.

• 3:02Glynn Washington?

  That's when I discover everybody here actually went to the private school Cranbrook. I've somehow stumbled on a Cranbrook private school reunion, and they all had Clarence-type parents. They're kind of embarrassed that all their parents had a Clarence parents marriage. And I'm like, "Aha! I used to hate you guys. Actually, I still hate you guys." And there I am, bullying the bullies who aren't even bullies. This guy trying to watch football. Because I'm triggered back to a time when I didn't have a voice.

• 3:43Glynn Washington?

  At least,

• 3:45Glynn Washington?

  I didn't trust the voice I had.

• 3:53Glynn Washington?

  Today on Snap Judgment, mic check.

• 3:59Glynn Washington?

  Two people, two fights, one question. Can you still hear yourself when everything gets loud? My name is from Washington, and as Marshall Mathers once said, "You better lose yourself in the music. The moment you own it, you better never let it go."

• 4:19Glynn Washington?

  When you're listening to Snap Judgment.

• 4:32Speaker 01

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• 5:12Glynn Washington?

  Now, this story does contain explicit language. Sensitive listeners are advised. Now, we all know that rap beefs have become big business. Everyone wants to weigh in on Kendrick versus Drake, Nicki versus Cardi, all kinds of money thrown into soaking the flames. But what about when you did it simply for the honor of being the best MC? Going home with a few Benjamins in your pocket, knowing you beat the best? Wow. Snapers, this story takes us back to those days, those early days of hip-hop, to when Roxanne Chanté and the most personal battle that she ever fought. Snap Judgment.

• 5:54Speaker 02

  Back then, Roxanne Shanté was Shanté Gooden. She grew up in Queensbridge, New York. This was the late 70s, the dawn of hip-hop. Think turntables, breakdancing, battle rapping.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  I was young, maybe about eight or nine, and I was like, "Well, I'm gonna get up in the morning and I don't wanna dance." Put on my shoes and I put on my pants and just did the whole day with it. And before you knew it, I could literally just walk through the house and just say a story about everything I see in the house. It became a second language for me. I'd started rhyming about everything that we was playing with, jumping hops, guys doing rope. I remember leaving out the house and going to the store. And I was rhyming about everything that I had to purchase from the store. And one of my girlfriends was next to me, Katrina Cooper. And she was saying, "Oh, do that again, do that again. Now, talk about the ice cream." She's throwing things at me and I'm just rhyming them. And then she started beating on the wall.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  And I would rhyme to it. And so, before you knew it, everyone in the projects, everybody wants to try me. And Trina, she was like, "Shanté is better than everybody." Like, she was going around telling everybody. And they were like, "No, she's not." You'd see them come with all of their friends. And I'm sitting there playing skelly. I'm on the ground, shooting tops. And they'd be like, "Somebody's here and they wanna battle." And be like, "What they wanna battle for?" Potato chips, ice cream. And then I'd stand up and then I'd rhyme about whatever it is they had on. Like, "You came here with your blue shirt, it got dirt. You're gonna get hurt, I'm about to do work."

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Every block had their champ, and Queensbridge was becoming famous for its rap battles. Shanté won every time. And she was so good that by age 11, battle rapping became her side hustle.

• 7:45Speaker 03

  I just started doing them all over the city. We started finding them for $2.50, $100, $1,500.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  So I'm thinking, "Great." You know, because we coming from a fixed income, I could use that money so I can go and get school clothes and take care of my sisters and stuff like that.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  So years later, my mom was going through a lot at the time. And I wound up in the foster care system. And I was in Bushwick Girls Group Home, and then I was in Hegeman. I had came home from Hegeman and was helping my mom with my sisters. I was 14. And I remember the first thing I wanted to do was laundry. So I'm taking the laundry down the laundromat. And it just so happens that DJ Molly Maul, one of the greatest hip hop producers, lived right above the laundry. And he's calling me out the window. And he's like, "Yo, yo." And I look up and I'm like, "What?"

• 8:42Speaker 03

  And he's like, "Listen, come to my house because I need you to do a freestyle. Because I heard you good." I said, "You didn't hear I was good. You know I'm good." And I said, "So you work at the Sergio Valente jean factory? Let me get some jeans for me and my sisters." And he was like, "Okay, what kind?" I was like, "Westers." And he said, "All right." And so I said, "Okay, I'll see you in a few minutes. Let me just put these clothes in the laundromat." So I put them in there, and I only had enough for 10 minutes. Let me dry it. I ran up to his house. I only got 10 minutes. He's like, "Okay, this is the beat I'm gonna play." And he played the big beat. That was the underlying beat for Roxanne Roxanne.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  So there was this song on the radio called Roxanne Roxanne that was done by UTFO. And it was about a girl named Roxanne who didn't want to talk to them and thought she was too good for them and stood them up. So I said, "Okay, I'm gonna be Roxanne from UTFO's song."

• 9:44Speaker 02

  And that was the moment that Shante Goodin became Roxanne Shante.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  And he put the beat on.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  And then I started off, "Well, my name is Roxanne. Don't you know I just a cold rock a party and I do the show."

• 10:01Speaker 04

  I said I met these three guys and you know it's two. And let me tell you and explain them all to you. I met this dude with the name of a hat. I didn't even walk away, I didn't give him no back. But then he got real mad and he got a little tired. If he worked for me, you know..."

• 10:14Speaker 03

  And then I went back downstairs and did my laundry and didn't think about it anymore.

• 10:17Speaker 04

  But he ain't got the money and he ain't got the loot. And every time that I see him, he's always a beggin'. And all the other girls..."

• 10:25Speaker 03

  And then about 1 o'clock in the morning, the phone rings. So I'm really feeling like I'm walking on eggshells with my mom and I don't want a lot of noise. So I run and hurry up and get to the phone. And as soon as I pick it up, I hear Trina saying, "Yo, you on the ring?" And I hang up. And then she calls back again. I'm like, "Stop, you're gonna get me in trouble." And she was like, "You're on the radio. Your song is on the radio." And I remember unplugging the phone from the wall and sliding down the wall.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  And I get emotional because I think that has a lot to do with

• 11:05Speaker 03

  how I never felt like a star.

• 11:13Speaker 03

  I had just came back from a group home. And that was because I was out and I was boosting and I was hustling and I'm trying to take care of my family and I was just a child. And I didn't want them to take me again. I didn't want to draw attention. So now, I sit there and I say, "Man, I wonder what I sound like on the radio." And then I just went back in the room and laid down.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Now I'm going to school and the song becomes super popular.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Every time you turn the radio on, it's playing, it's playing.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  A manager comes along and says, hey, listen, I'm gonna manage your career and we're going out on tour.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  And my mom, they bought her a washing machine, some linoleum for the living room, and they gave her $150 for every week that I was on tour. And they're making millions. She has an extra $150 a week. She doesn't have to worry about where I'm at. And because she didn't know anything about the music industry or the music business, she thought that that was okay. And I don't fault her for that. I was never angry with her for that. She just didn't know.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Now I'm on tour for a year. No home address, no nothing. I'm going in clubs and I'm performing at 2, 3 o'clock in the morning. Everybody's around you sniffing cocaine.

• 13:03Speaker 03

  So now I'm traveling with all these men. The managers is like my father figure. Everybody else is my brothers. So we're a dysfunctional family. We're on the road. We fight together, we eat together, but we travel together and we love each other. That's all I knew.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  When they told me that I do a show and I'm supposed to split the money with everybody, I believed them.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  Roxanne comes back to New York. She's 15 now. And her manager tells her there's a music convention where they're holding a battle rap contest with the low stakes title, "The MC Battle for World Supremacy."

• 13:40Speaker 03

  You were gonna be the best battle rapper in the world. The entire world was gonna know you were gonna get a belt. You were gonna have bragging rights for a whole entire year and you were gonna get a check.

• 13:52Speaker 03

  I just always knew I would win. Because I know that no matter what, I got this battle thing down pat.

• 14:00Speaker 02

  Roxanne had a very specific vision of how she'd use the money she won.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  I just wanted a steak from Beef Steak Charlie's. Like, there was a restaurant downstairs called Beef Steak Charlie's. I wanted to have me a filet mignon. And I was gonna get me a window seat. And I was gonna eat my steak and my baked potato. And then I was gonna take myself downtown to Delante Street. I was gonna buy the girls their coats and stuff. And then I was gonna go home. And that was my whole plan.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  So the battle was at the Marriott Marquis. And I remember seeing people pulling up in their limos. And when I got there, by myself, it was almost like going into Grand Central Station back in the day when they used to have the board. And you could see when the trains were coming in and out.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  The board listed the tournament draw, the people she'd have to beat to become champion.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  And when I looked up on the board, it was all of these MCs. And these were MCs that I like, MCs that I know, and me. This is gonna be a long day.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  The event was held in a banquet hall with a stage.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  The room was packed. Super rockin' Mr. Magic, he was the host. He had a radio show on WBLS called The Rap Attack. Each time he introduced me, he was like, "And she's here to dust off another one. We got her right here, fly girl Roxanne Shante." And I started rhyming.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  It was a blur. Roxanne can't even remember who she faced in the first battle. The judges scored on a scale of 1 to 10. Highest total moves on. Roxanne got her first win with a bunch of 10s. But soon she noticed something strange.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  Every time I would sit down, they'd be like, "Okay, you ready?" And I just felt like it was just a constant fight, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Roxanne was called up to battle one rapper after another with no breaks.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  I was wondering if they were going to battle each other, but everyone was there to battle me.

• 16:02Speaker 03

  I was saying to myself, if all of them had rhymes about me, then they must have known that this was gonna take place. And no one never told me.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  So seven MCs in, we're already a few hours into this, I'm still going. Some of the MCs quit in the middle of the rhymes. They would get so upset. Losing to me was career-ending. Because you can't be this big, strong male rapper and lose to a little girl.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  Our next two contestants, they happen to be both good friends of mine. So let's hear it for Fuquan from Stasis Sonic. Come on, give it up.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  I see Fuquan come from the other side of the stage. So I look at him and he looks at me. He grabs the mic.

• 16:52Speaker 05

  One, two, one, two. And of course...

• 16:55Speaker 03

  He's coming in like, "I'm gonna win this, you not gonna beat me." I see that he's angry and I know that he's a really good MC. So it's not gonna be easy.

• 17:05Speaker 05

  My favorite and yours, put your hands together, welcome the Queen of Rocks, Fagin Roxanne Sante.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  One, two, three, hit it.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  Y'all have to excuse me, 'cause I'm very nervous and, um, here it goes.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  My rhymes are devastating, every word that I speak. And you see this guy here, his rap is weak. He can't cope with me and get the...

• 17:30Speaker 03

  So when he first starts rhyming...

• 17:32Speaker 05

  Chief on the tops and heads is my call with superior rhymes. I'm taking all. In my rhyme catalog, got my winning scores. To add on your name is what I came here for.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  And if you think that I'm devastating, don't you know it's my favorite? 'Cause the way that I do it when I rock on the mic, don't you know that it is me? The R-O-X-A-N-N-E.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  He just said everything he could say. He was going to let the anger of his words try to say all the things that he thought were very hurtful and hateful to women.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  I give you credit for giving the tribe a Roxanne. Suck my dick and die. You can't really rap, 'cause you ain't down, bitch. You nutty in the talk of the town.

• 18:14Speaker 03

  But what he did not know was that I had been hearing hurtful and hateful stuff my entire life. So I was ready for it.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  But the catch was, he wasn't ready for his own words to be turned around on him. And then when it was my turn, I remember using his lyrics against him. What? Wait a minute. Let's get this straight. You the sucker motherfucker and you little bitty prick. You ain't got shit with your little bitty dick. You told me the second thing you told me to fuck it. Nigga fuck it up and I'll come in a bucket. Now let me see you try to hang with that. You know what you can do? You can kiss my crack. Sign out and use your toes, baby. I am number one. And I remember the whole crowd going crazy. Once again, put your hands together for Fuquan and Roxanne Shante.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  And then I remember him breathing so heavy and I would say to myself, if we wasn't at the Marriott, he would have fought me.

• 19:19Speaker 03

  I knew that I literally had won.

• 19:28Glynn Washington?

  When Snap Judgment returns, Roxanne Shante has just one more battle to go to be crowned the best battle rapper in the world. Stay tuned.

• 19:53Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the mic check episode. When last we left, 15-year-old Roxanne Shante from Queensbridge, New York, had just outwrapped each and every opponent put before her in the MC battle for world supremacy. But will she take home the big prize? Snap Judgment.

• 20:15Speaker 05

  Okay. That was kinda good. I like that. That knocked the cobwebs out. Shante moves on to the finals?

• 20:23Speaker 03

  And for some reason, this whole energy came over me for the last battle because I'm like, now the world is going to know. Not just Queensbridge is gonna know that I'm the best. Not just New York is gonna know the best. The entire world is gonna know. Finally, it is the chief rocker himself, Busy B. He's the last person for me to battle. If you grew up in New York, anytime between the 70s and the 80s, and you were going to park parties, or you were going to park jams, or you were going to clubs, or you were going to after-hours spots, then you knew who Busy B was. And people loved Busy B. And Busy B knew that he was that MC. He walk in with that pride, and he walk in with his chest out, and he had this whole entourage with him.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  And yeah, baby, that's how it's gonna be. Like, he talked like a pimp.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  A party MC can be one of your most difficult opponents because they know what the crowd wants. They know what to say to make the crowd get the "oo" and the "ah" moments. So even if their rhymes are not as good, they know how to make the crowd respond.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  And I'm still looking at my watch. I had a little white leather Timex that I valued a lot. And I was saying like, okay, I could still, still catch the store. I'm thinking about how I gotta go buy these coats, and then I don't wanna make sure that these coats don't get stolen when I get on the train. So now Busy B's getting ready. So I see him fixing his jacket and everything. He said, "Yeah, let me talk to you for a second over here on the side." I said, "Okay." Because he's the first one who wanted to talk to me beforehand. Nobody else even asked me how I was doing, how did I feel, how did I get there. B was smooth as a motherfucker. He said, "Hey, listen, come on over here, let me talk to you for a second. You want something to eat? You good? You want this? Yeah, they been wearing you out all day." And I'm listening to him talking to me,

• 22:14Speaker 03

  and I'm saying, "I'm getting ready to get you." So then he says, "Listen, now you know this last round here, I'm thinking we shouldn't go too hard on each other. Don't do me like how you did the other ones. Because I'm still Busy B, so when I leave here, I still gotta be Busy B." And then he was like, "Do you do cocaine?" I said, "No, I don't." He's like, "Oh, okay, well, hold on, I do." So he took him a little sniff. He said, "Now, listen, now that we ready, I'm just gonna let you know, I'm gonna be easy on you. I ain't gonna be hard on you because you're a little girl. So that's what we gonna do when we go out here. We're gonna be easy on each other." I said, "Okay." And I'm feeling comfortable because I'm like, I don't wanna embarrass you like I did the rest because you spoke to me, and you had some kind words, and you cared.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  So Busy Bee goes out and they get ready to play the beat. And one, two.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Busy Bee goes out there and he does his rhymes.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  And I'm listening.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  And I said, "Hold on. He's out here really going hard at me." And then I'm saying, "Well, maybe that was just him having to get that off." But then the next time, he comes out and he says some even harsher things.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  And when he says them, he's still looking at me, winking. "Got this, though, we got it. Yeah, we got this." And then I realized what he was doing. So then I just went in. And I was like, you know, talking about how backstage, you said we wasn't gonna do all of this, and I put all of that in my rhyme.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  So the crowd is listening like, "Oh, you tried to set her up."

• 25:00Speaker 03

  And the next thing I knew... It's the end of the rounds.

• 25:07Speaker 03

  And now, the crowd is going crazy. So now, we're waiting for the judges. And I see the judges over there, they're talking and they're getting their cards together and they shuffling their cards around and everything else. They give his scores.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  Judges, hold your cards up. Nine eighteen twenty-seven, forty-seven points for the Chief Rocker. All right?

• 25:27Speaker 03

  They didn't give him a perfect score. So then when it came to me, they turned the cards over.

• 25:34Speaker 05

  We got a eight. Bam Bada, we got a ten. Wizkid, we got a ten.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  I said, "Okay."

• 25:40Speaker 05

  And the Fat Boys, we got a ten.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  Roxanne was so far ahead, she didn't even need a high score to win.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  And then Judge Number Three, he turned it over.

• 25:51Speaker 03

  And it was a four.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  The winner, Chief Rocker, Busy Bee.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Busy Bee wins.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  And the crowd went crazy. They started booing.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  And for the first time, I felt not like a super MC, but I felt like a little girl. And I remember looking at the number and I dropped my head. I just couldn't believe it.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  I thought that if you were the best, all you had to do was be the best and all you had to do was be good at what you were.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Because of that day is when I started to question everything. Like, am I really supposed to split my money with y'all? Nothing seems real to me in this hip-hop thing now.

• 26:39Speaker 03

  I knew that I was being taken advantage of. I'd never said that out my mouth before. I guess that's why it was so hard to say it just now. Before, I used to always say they took advantage of my mom. But no, they took advantage of me.

• 26:55Speaker 03

  That was my first heartbreak. That day, I fell out of love with hip-hop.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  That night, I walked from the Marriott Marquis all the way down to 34th Street. I always felt that whatever feeling, whatever pain, I could walk it away. And I walked down to the Empire State Building. I remember looking up at the Empire State Building, and I remember saying to myself, and it was the strangest thought, I wonder who likes the Empire State Building? And then got on the train and then went back home. And they were like, "Did you win? What happened?" I said, "I won, but they didn't pay me."

• 27:47Speaker 03

  And I left it at that. After that, I just started living life. I did some unthinkable's. I did some unimaginable's, but I never did any unforgivable's. I didn't walk away angry. I walked away hurt. Did I do other things? Yeah. Shout out to the IBW Workers, Local 3 Electrical Workers Union. I learned how to work that. I worked at the Gramercy Park Hotel. I became a mom. I never felt like I died.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  And that could have been the end of her showbiz story. But decades later, in her 40s, she stumbled into a gig hosting parties, telling a few jokes, warming up the crowd, getting people to dance. She was always good with crowds, quick on her feet. And at one of these parties, two movie producers who knew about her past approached her with an incredible offer. They wanted to make a movie about her life. Sounds like a setup, right? But-

• 28:56Speaker 03

  From a year of us meeting, we had a movie. And I remember sitting in the car and riding to the movie and seeing people outside in a storm, waiting to get in to see my movie. I watched it with everyone else. And that was my way of, like, hearing my record with everyone else.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  After the movie release, the respect from rappers, the thing Roxanne had always been missing, started to pour in.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  When Nas did his Illmatic, he put in a documentary that like, if it wasn't for Roxanne Shanté, it wouldn't be no me. To hear Killer Mike say things and to hear Eminem say things and to hear Missy Elliott, Sissy Snoop say things, they're saying that they owe a lot to me. To see everybody say all of these things, it was so incredible.

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Everything was summed up for me when I saw Judge Number Three, 35 years later.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  This was the judge who gave Roxanne that four, the score that lost her the MC battle for world supremacy.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  I was with my husband. We go to an event and my husband spotted him out of nowhere. Like literally, my husband was like,

• 30:21Speaker 03

  and then I'm like, yeah, leave it alone. And he was like, no. He said, because that day changed your whole life. So we see Judge Number Three and we're on a red carpet and he pulls him to the side. And before my husband could say anything and before I could say anything, Judge Number Three looks at me and he says, "So proud of you. I see everything that you've done and I am so happy for you." And then here go my husband cutting in. "But why'd you do it?"

• 30:57Speaker 03

  But he was like,

• 30:59Speaker 03

  hip hop had just started being taken seriously as a genre of music. They just started getting out of the parks. They just started getting major record deals. And he said, "The best in the world, with everybody looking that day, couldn't be a 15-year-old girl." Because they'd have never taken hip hop seriously.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  I hugged him and I said, "Okay." I said, "Okay." He said, "Now I just want to let you know that you won that day." And I said, "I know."

• 31:48Glynn Washington?

  A huge, big, giant thank you to the now Grammy-winning, forever queen of rocks, Roxanne Shanté. For telling your story to the Snap, you can find Roxanne's Instagram and social media on our show notes. Roxanne hosts a daily show on Sirius XM's Channel 43, Rock the Bells Radio, and Roxanne is always Roxanne. Original score for that piece was by Lauren Newsom. The editor was Nancy Lopez. It was produced by Justin Craymon.

• 32:25Glynn Washington?

  Now, if you missed even a moment, welcome, dear friends, to the world of Snap storytelling. Know that a tiny plot, our five-part series that recently dropped, you can listen to all of it on podcast platforms everywhere right now. KQED in San Francisco is Snap Judgment's Orbiting Hall of Justice. Snap is brought to you by the team that can spit rhymes the best of them, except, of course, for the uber-producer, Mr. Mark Ristich, because he is more the yodeler. No Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. And on Team Snap, the union-represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members

• 33:09Glynn Washington?

  of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIL Local 51. There's Nancy Lopez, Pat McAdie Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Gorio, John Facile, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge, David Exame. And this is not the news. No way is this the news. In fact, you could be minding your own business, watching a football game, and some idiot could start shouting at you about where you went to high school for some reason, and you would still, still, not be as far away from the news as this is. But this is PRX.