Mecca Redmon Wants Hip-Hop to Know the Woman Behind “Feelin’ It”

Mecca Redmon in a patterned cap and black outfit.

Angela “Mecca” Redmon is bringing the person behind a familiar chorus into focus. In a Parlé interview published September 15, the singer discusses Feelin’ It: A Hip-Hop Memoir and why being heard on a record is different from having your own story heard.

Redmon’s contribution to JAY-Z’s “Feelin’ It,” from his 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt, provides the starting point. She tells interviewer Todd Davis that recognition of the song did not always translate into recognition of its singer. The conversation connects that experience with her decision to write about motherhood, entrepreneurship and the years beyond the studio.

The memoir has a history of its own. In an earlier So FN Dope conversation ahead of the book, Redmon described writing as a way to reclaim her voice and examine what her experiences meant. She framed the work as a personal account shaped by reflection, with more to say than the familiar recording could hold. This week’s interview returns to that purpose; it is not an announcement that the book is being released today.

For listeners, the useful distinction is between knowing a performance and knowing its author. Reading Redmon’s account alongside the original interviews makes room for both. Her artist-and-author profile also places literature and music together, an appropriate invitation to approach the memoir as an artist telling her own story.

PowerPage’s recent Mannie Fresh Producer Spotlight offers another perspective on the people behind enduring rap records. Here, the attention belongs to the woman whose voice listeners already know—and the story she chooses to tell around it.