Eva Marie King's Hip Hop History blog

Theme images by Michael Elkan

Professor Eva Marie King, MS: I began voice training at four-years-old with my father Theodore King, who taught me to sing to recorded music. At age 5 my elder sisters taught me to sing the Jackson Five classic song, "Darling Dear" which complemented my soprano singing voice, I studied African and modern dance at Gloria Jackson Dance School. I also toured New York City as an honor student singing with the Edward Kennedy Ellington School (P.S. 140 Queens) Glee Club in the mid-seventies. As an honor student I became a writer and poet in grade school, emulating Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni. Later, I admired and read about the lives of Ida B. Wells, Angela Davis and Assata Shakur. Zulu Queen Lisa Lee and MC Sha-Rock were the first women MCs in the Hip Hop Movement that I heard, read about or saw perform. Prior to actually seeing their performances which was in the time period of 1977-1978, I had been rhyming with men, mostly DJ's, as the MCing genre as a separate entity was still evolving. Many of the MCs in SouthSide Jamaica Queens were DJs first, such as DJ Woody Wood, DJ Divine of Infinity Machine and myself. For my complete biography search: "Eva Marie King, MS" on Facebook or Twitter.