The Lady of Rage & Yo-Yo

The West continued to rise way out in California with N.W.A., Ice-T, $hort, MC Hammer, and others starting to steal New York's thunder in the early '90s. After the flash-in-the-pan success of JJ Fad's "Supersonic" in 1990, all eyes turned to Yo-Yo, the hazel-eyed guest MC on Ice Cube's seminal "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted." On an album soaked in misogyny, she went blow-for-blow against Cube on "It's A Man's World," and made the most waves her career a year later with "You Can't Play With My Yo-Yo" "Don't try to play me out," she warned. Her positivist rhymes and self-empowered image landed her memorable cameo roles in "Boyz N The Hood," Menace II Society," and the Fox sitcom "Martin." But she stopped releasing albums in 1998. The Lady of Rage reached a similar stillborn end to her career after 1994's "Afro Puffs" raised sky-high anticipation for her first album. A native Virginian, Rage made her mark with California's own Dr. Dre "Stranded On Death Row" and Snoop Dogg "G Funk Intro," as the "Above The Rim" soundtrack's "Afro Puffs" produced by Dre whet appetites for her debut, "Eargasm." An MC with top-notch roughneck rhyme schemas, Rage suffered from the notorious mid-'90s label shakeup at Death Row Records; the fallout between CEO Suge Knight and the departed Dr. Dre left her retitled "Necessary Roughness " severely neglected after its delayed appearance in 1997. A flurry of small acting roles followed, but no more noteworthy music.