Words by Terry Shropshire
Images by Mike Melendy for Steed Media Service

LOS ANGELES – The mid-afternoon sunrays cast a golden glow over the mountains of Hollywood, giving the valley section of this massive metropolis a dreamlike state. Cradled comfortably within this serene ambience of palm trees and manicured lawns, one of the most famous deejays in hip-hop history percolates with visions of a return to worldwide prominence. Spinderella levels her crescent-shaped eyes with yours, her radiant pupils resembling a Southern California sunset, and she issues a demonstrative declaration for her immediate future.
“You’ll definitely see more of me in 2008.”

Though she possesses a velvety voice, Spin delivered her decree with a forceful finality, like a promise, as if the matter is already a foregone conclusion. To a person like Spin, whose home ripples with a spiritual undercurrent, the seventh year of the new millennium represented the year of completion. The year 2008, therefore, signifies a new beginning for the tenacious turntable titan from East New York. She’s ready to explode back onto the scene like a holiday fireworks display. And her fan base is ready to see her light up the musical horizon with her colorful theatrics and stage presence. With hip-hop going through that phase where leftover, reheated music is giving fans and critics acid reflux, Spin’s skills and pedigree will undoubtedly help satiate the many malnourished fans of hip hop.

Spinderella’s “The Back Spin,” the nationally syndicated radio show she co-hosts with DJ Mo’Dav, is just one of the fronts from which she is launching her resurgence. Aired weekly in places such as New York, Boston, Portland Ore., and Flint, Mich., and available on www.thebackspin.com, it’s where Spin gives an “ode to the old-school artists who laid the bricks,” she says.

“I really feel that there’s something new happening — period. The industry is what it is,” she says derisively and dismissively. “People are zoning in, they want something concrete. They want what’s right. They want new beginnings. I want to take part in a lot of brand new things in my career, in my personal life. I’m looking forward to 2008.”

Spin hopes 2008 will include a reunion with the history-making, barrier-breaking, Grammy-winning female rap group Salt-N-Pepa. Ever since their last album and tour in 1998, sexually provocative sirens have occupied the creative void created by Salt-N-Pepa’s breakup. “There is hope that we will get our stuff together and we will be doing that reunion situation, because first of all, I looooooooved what I did with Salt-N-Pepa and I had a blast doing it. I’m still ready. I’m still relevant. I’m still making it happen.”

The hope is that the three can make it happen together. Spinderella has made only sparse appearances on Salt-N-Pepa’s MTV-based reality show, which is strange since Spin is inextricably intertwined into the fabric of this groundbreaking group. Salt-N-Pepa without Spinderella seems weird. It’s like an Italian restaurant without pasta and meat. It’s like a Mercedes-Benz without the emblem and luxury gadgets. Something would be glaringly and conspicuously missing from the equation.

The trio’s meteoric propulsion to the pinnacle of rap was powered by club bangers; “Push It,” “Shoop,” “Let’s Talk About Sex” and “Whatta Man.” But it was their audacious forays into controversial and taboo topics that created an emotional bond with their fans and made them the best-selling female rap act of all time.

“We talked about a lot of things that young women were going through. We were like the girls next door. That’s why they loved us and adhered to us,” says Spin, recalling the signature moments that caress her heart. “They loved our personalities. They loved our looks — I don’t know why. They basically called us trendsetters and pioneers.”

And definitely sex symbols, a label that Spin reluctantly accepts. “Oh, gosh! To be classified as a sex symbol, I think that’s one of the sweetest compliments,” she says. Feathery tresses that flow past her elegant check bones like a river, frame Spin’s regal visage, which is dipped in rich caramel. She is a more seasoned version of the young woman who, with Salt-N-Pepa, created music history and detonated gender barriers with aplomb and abandon.

The doe-eyed diva is now blissfully bunkered in her musical fortress, the soul-soothing sanctuary that is her studio. It is here that Spin is able to shake worldly worries off her shoulders, fling her stress into the corner like an old coat, and allow the bustling city outside to fade away like the morning mist.

It’s been that way ever since the woman born Deidra “Dee Dee” Roper emanated from Brooklyn when rap was brewing beneath the concretes and skyscrapers.

“In Brooklyn the atmosphere was whoo! … It was rough. I grew up in a place called Pink Houses in East New York, though I didn’t know it was so rough because I never went outside of Brooklyn,” she recalls of that tough but fruitful foundation. “And at that point, the whole hip-hop thing was basically in its toddler stage. It was just a beautiful thing. The kids owned it.”

Spin seemingly found her place in this burgeoning, fledgling music form at the intersection of Fate and Destiny.

“I used to DJ as a hobby. And I picked up the whole DJ [thing] from my dad, who would play music day and night, blaring it through our apartment in Brooklyn ..., ” Spin says, rewinding the mental projector in her head. “It was music in my ears when I went to sleep, and I would wake up to it. My family members would deejay. Music was everywhere.”

It’s easy to discern how those times created poignant snapshots that Spin has tucked securely away in her soul. Back in those days, Roper’s peeps would take the turntables outside and do an impromptu jam or host a block party. People would pour into the area from all over New York’s most populous borough and instead of going to a club, they would have a spontaneous celebration of music and each other. “I saw all that as a kid,” Spin adds, not realizing at the time how the confluence of circumstances was propelling her toward her destiny. “I was not trying to be a DJ, but I had a high school boyfriend who was a DJ, and being around him all the time, I picked up the technique myself.” As a 15-year-old high school student, someone was looking for a female deejay to join a female rap group. She had no idea at the time that it was Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandra “Pepa” Denton. She slipped into the role as easily as she slides into one of her designer outfits. Roper the Brooklynite, suddenly metamorphosed into Spinderella, the world-renowned turntablist.

There is a refreshing aura that engulfs this legendary deejay. Spinderella doesn’t feel the need to pimp her musical credentials to the world. She doesn’t name drop like a Hollywood press agent. She knows what she brought to the game and how she blasted open the floodgates of change regarding female deejays. Back when she first boarded that tour bus to join Salt-N-Pepa, there were about as many women deejays as there are sightings of President Bush at an NAACP conference. That women are now sprinkled liberally on the radio and club landscape, is a testament to what Spin brought to the table.

“You got DJ Sweet, you got DJ Backside. A lot of females are involved in radio and clubs,” she says. “The female deejay thing used to be unique and now the gates are flooded. You see them everywhere. We’re a hot commodity.”

Spin recently strapped herself in behind the turntables at the prestigious Black Enterprise Golf & Tennis Challenge at an ultra-exclusive country club along the pristine emerald  greens in suburban Miami. Spinderella even got the stiff suits and starched-collar types to form a wild and flailing mass of humanity on the dance floor. You practically needed welder’s goggles to watch her lightning-charged performance. It is unmistakable that after two decades in the game that Spin can take any song and ‘supersize’ it. The dozen or so that weren’t dancing were holding up cell phones and taking pictures of Spin as if she were on exhibit. Spinderella sported a detached expression on her face — no doubt accustomed to being X-rayed with the unblinking eyes of glaring fans and admirers. She broke her spell from her work to occasionally flash that halogen grin that makes brothers quiver, then she quickly returned to ripping roof-rattling club anthems from her repertoire.
Spin, along with the fans, hope they can see the trio on the world stage once more.
“Since Salt-N-Pepa last toured in ‘98, I’ve been keeping us alive. When I deejay, I play Salt-N-Pepa to death because I love the music. The people love the music. My hope and dream is that we get this reunion tour going and hit the world and be global again,” she says.

This is more than mere sentiment rumbling through her thin frame. Spin really believes that Salt-N-Pepa can be that singular representation of female respectability that is direly needed. “We can really, really attack some of the issues like we used to. And that’s one of the things that we did,” she says. If there was an issue, we’d address it as best as we could, and people actually hold us to that responsibility ... I really feel that we should step back into that place.”

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