Da Underground Heat

Personnel includes: M.C. Lyte (rap vocals); Jamie Foxx, Christina Ginger, Neb Luv.
"Ride Wit Me" was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Female Rap Solo Performance.
Four and a half years after parting ways with EastWest (a subsidiary of major label Warner) in the wake of her last album, Seven & Seven, MC Lyte, at the advanced age of 31, attempted a comeback with Da Undaground Heat, Vol. 1. Pacting with the production team Maad Phunk!, she benefits from contemporary-sounding beats and gimmicks while her own rap approach remains determinedly old school. She is still relentlessly self-congratulatory, praising and mythologizing herself in a style reminiscent of her 1980s origins. The best and most unusual track is "Boy Like That," which uses a sample of the song by the same name from West Side Story. ~ William Ruhlmann