Wee Papa Girl Rappers
Encyclopedia
Wee Papa Girl Rappers were a British female rap
duo, who found chart success in the late 1980s. They were twin sisters Sandra and Samantha Lawrence.
- twin sisters Sandra Lawrence aka Total S and Samantha Lawrence aka T.Y. Tim/Timmie, are best remembered for the single "Wee Rule" - ironically more inspired by reggae
and dancehall
than rap/hip hop, which reached #6 on the UK Singles Chart in October 1988. Another one of their singles "Heat it Up" - featuring Two Men and a Drum Machine
, was a popular dance
track which reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart in June 1988. It also featured an acid house
/techno
style remix from Inner City's Kevin Saunderson
which may have contributed to the popularity of the track at the time. They released two albums on Jive Records before splitting up.
The duo got their name "Wee Papa" from the Saint Lucia French Creole expression "Oui Papa" which their father frequently uttered. Their father hailed from the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia
.
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
duo, who found chart success in the late 1980s. They were twin sisters Sandra and Samantha Lawrence.
Overview
Originally signed to Jive RecordsJive Records
Jive Records was a record label based in New York City, operating under RCA Music Group. Jive was primarily known for a string of successes with hip hop artists in the 1980s, and in teen pop and boy bands in the late 1990s. The word "jive" was inspired by Township Jive, a form of South African...
- twin sisters Sandra Lawrence aka Total S and Samantha Lawrence aka T.Y. Tim/Timmie, are best remembered for the single "Wee Rule" - ironically more inspired by reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
and dancehall
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably,...
than rap/hip hop, which reached #6 on the UK Singles Chart in October 1988. Another one of their singles "Heat it Up" - featuring Two Men and a Drum Machine
Fine Young Cannibals
Fine Young Cannibals were a British band formed in Birmingham, England, in 1984, by bassist David Steele and guitarist Andy Cox , and singer Roland Gift...
, was a popular dance
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
track which reached #21 on the UK Singles Chart in June 1988. It also featured an acid house
Acid house
Acid house is a sub-genre of house music that emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines rather than sung lyrics. Acid house's core electronic squelch sounds were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with...
/techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
style remix from Inner City's Kevin Saunderson
Kevin Saunderson
Kevin Saunderson is an American electronic music producer. At the age of nine he moved to Belleville, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit where he attended Belleville High School and befriended two students, Derrick May and Juan Atkins...
which may have contributed to the popularity of the track at the time. They released two albums on Jive Records before splitting up.
The duo got their name "Wee Papa" from the Saint Lucia French Creole expression "Oui Papa" which their father frequently uttered. Their father hailed from the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia is an island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 620 km2 and has an...
.
Albums
- The Beat, the Rhyme, the Noise (Jive, 1988) UKUK Albums ChartThe UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
#39 - Be Aware (Jive, 1990)
Singles
- "Faith" (1988) UKUK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
#60 - "Heat it Up" (1988) UK #21
- "Wee Rule" (1988) UK #6
- "Soulmate" (1988) UK #45
- "Blow the House Down" (1989) UK #65
- "Get in the Groove" (1990)
- "The Bump" (1990)
- "Best of My Love" (1991)
- "Wee are the Girls" (1992)
- "Wherever You Go" (1994)