On June 22, 1993, MC Lyte dropped her roughest, toughest, most in-your-face album to date with Ain’t No Other, marking a transition for her – both personally and professionally.

Understandably, the legendary Brooklyn rapper’s fourth solo studio LP had taken its cue from the aggressive and grimey nature from other contemporary albums that year – like Naughty By Nature’s 19 Naughty III or Das EFX’s Straight Up Sewaside. However, Ain’t No Other was perhaps Lyte’s preeminent effort in addressing social and political issues that plagued both the Big Apple and beyond and continue to do so to this day.

On the single “I Go On,” she raps about fighting back against domestic violence, noting particularly that “hitting a woman is wrong.” Elsewhere, she expresses her sexual freedom and regails tales of the lengths she would go to remain single while playing dudes who were lauded in society to do the same to her.

Ain’t No Other‘s bite also extended to its lead single “Ruffneck,” which landed Lyte a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1994 and made her the first female solo rapper to be certified Gold for a single. The song was an ode of sorts to thug love as she rapped about her sexual preference for men who have a "wicked smile with a mouth full of gold teeth" and a "dude with an attitude" who'll "smack it, lick it, s*****w it up style." Suffice to say, it was quintessential backpack-era ruggedness and a departure from a much more agreeable Act Like You Know from two years earlier.

BET recently spoke with MC Lyte about the 30th anniversary of Ain’t No Other, including how she gathered the production for it, the standout moments, the success it provided her career moving forward and much more. Read below.

BET: How did you link with Teddy Riley’s camp in regards to production as well as extending your working relationship further with Audio Two and others?

MC Lyte: It was an interesting time because the sound was kind of changing. The sound of hip-hop was changing and everything was becoming a little bit more gruffer. And I think that’s probably – I don't know if that's due to Naughty By Nature or Lords of the Underground, Das EFX. So considering the tone had changed a little bit, of course Ain't No Other would be reflective of that. And in setting up the space and where I was going to go in terms of production, I wanted to have that type of sound. And so I met with many producers and I had to settle into what spoke to me when I listened to the tracks. I wanted something that told me what I needed to speak about. That was a fun album because any album that I did, the record label always allowed me to just go out and do what I wanted to, and then at the very end they said, “Okay, you did what you want, now this is what we want you to do, and that was the trip down to Future Recordings to be with Teddy and the rest of his crew.

BET: I feel like that rugged tone was very evident in “Ruffneck.” What were your best memories of recording what ended up being the biggest single from the album?

Lyte: So I flew down to Virginia, where Future Recordings is, and I believe they already had “Ruffneck” ready. They knew I was coming and they were excited and I was excited to go down. I just remember being in the studio with a bunch of guys, which isn’t abnormal because when I'm in the studio on any given day, working with [Milk Dee] and [Gizmo], it can be a lot of people in there or not. It could just be me and Milk, or not. So I was used to it. These were all guys that I didn't know, but it still felt like home. Everybody for the most part was from New York – it might have been a couple of folks that were from Virginia. But they were all crowded up in the studio and when they played the music, I just was like, Wow, this has a lot of energy. As a matter of fact, I remember, outside of “Lyte As A Rock,” which was 113 beats per minute, I didn't recall having something that was so energized. Usually my stuff was very laid back. And so I was like, Okay, I gotta get the energy up for this.

BET: “Ruffneck” was also the first song by a female solo rapper to be certified Gold and your first Grammy nomination for Best Rap Solo Performance in 1994. What did that mean to get that plaque and the nomination during that time in hip-hop’s history?

Lyte: Oh it was everything. It was the catalyst to the next level of my career. And after that is when I was invited to do the remix of the Janet Jackson song. I was invited to do the Janet tour. I think probably did Arsenio one more time before he retired. I did the Rosie O'Donnell Show and the Conan O'Brien Show. I was just all over the place, and I did an extensive amount of touring. When I look back at some of my peers who had gone at that point into television, with their own shows – Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Fresh Prince [Will Smith], but I was overseas. I started off with William Morris. And I left William Morris, former agency, that just did performance. It was extremely rewarding in the area of performance, but they did not have a theatrical department. So yeah, I was on the road during that time touring every piece of land you could imagine.

BET: “I Go On” was a change of pace on the album and definitely one of my favorite cuts. That “Been So Long,” Anita Baker sample is incredible. What do you remember about recording that one?

Lyte: Yeah, it just was a really good feeling song to me. I do remember Anita Baker not wanting to clear the sample. So Teddy just decided, “Okay, we'll take out a note or two and we'll do an interpolation and we'll keep it moving.” Lucky for me it passed the test, we didn't get sued. But yet we were still able to have that laid back, r&b meets hip-hop feel. I enjoyed recording that song, that was more in the register of where I was used to being.

BET: On the third verse you address domestic violence, which is in that vein of activism you employed in your lyrics in much of your music even outside of Ain’t No Other…

Lyte: I always am about somehow infiltrating some social consciousness into my lyrics in some capacity. So whether I dedicate a full song to a particular subject, “Not With A Dealer,” “I Cram To Understand U,” “Poor Georgie.” On “Eyes Are the Soul,” I addressed three different stories of people with HIV, with AIDS. But on a lot of songs I'll just put in a verse or I'll put in a couple of words, if it just feels like that's where I want to hit. The music is kind of telling me that story I need to tell, so it wasn't obscure at all for me to address domestic violence, as I have addressed many topics that have plagued our communities.

BET: So, “Steady F*****g”... Was that a song you knew you were going to make as soon as you heard Roxanne Shanté’s “Big Mama” or you were creating the album later and were like you know what, I need to respond? Because you didn’t hold back…

Lyte: Yeah that was just ridiculous. I don't know that there was much thought put into it, except okay, yeah, we got to respond. And at that point, I think Milk and Giz went to producing and getting the track together, and then it was just about recording the vocals. So yeah, outside of we need to respond, that was about all the thought I gave to it.

BET: What does it mean to you that women are so at the forefront of the culture now 50 years after it was created, especially since you had to go through so many issues yourself with your career because of how difficult it was to get a record deal back then, wanting to express yourself sexually but often couldn’t or even owning your own rap name?

Lyte: Well, as far as where it is today, there was a time in the early 90s and late 80s when there were a lot of female emcees that were signed to major record labels. So it's not as if the time never existed, which is also a cue to know that those were major record labels that these young ladies were signed to. Today they're signed to major and independent, so I think it's really important that if the majors ever decide that it costs too much money for the upkeep, for the maintenance for the performances and all of the things that come with a female recording artists – if they ever decide is too much, it's going to be up to the independents to keep it going and to keep it moving and women-involved. Just like yesteryear, it could take a turn and all of a sudden female emcees would evaporate.

So I would say to anyone involved who supports women in hip-hop to do the things that it really takes to support them, which means go to their shows, listen to them on streaming services, buy their record. No one buys records anymore. Buy a record to support a woman in hip-hop. And most of all, talk about her. Word of mouth is how we find out about different recording artists. I would just stay to have two or three who haven't gotten promotion, who aren't in the mainstream, who aren't on the front of the magazines, talk about them and help uplift their careers.

BET: Why was MC Sha Rock the guiding light for you coming up?

Lyte: Because she was the first you. She was the first female I ever heard on the microphone, and it was important for me then to hear that because I was young. I was listening to all of the guys, but I was like, Wait a minute, where's the woman in all of this? Then to hear her was just like, Oh, here is the woman in all of this. She was just a beacon of hope in light in my little world because I think I might have heard her when I was five or six.

BET: You told Tamron Hall something very interesting late last year in regards to your legacy, in that you haven’t always processed every moment of your music career when it happened but definitely lived in it when it was happening. Looking back at it, was there ever a moment you may not have felt like a big deal to you when it was happening but ended up being legendary?

Lyte: Oh yeah there was a lot of those moments. I mean touring was like that – being on the road with these larger than life artists [it] wasn’t until I looked back and said, Oh, wow, look at that. That was amazing. I think doing the song with Sinead O'Connor was like, Okay, she wants me to rap on her song. Of course she was still building during those days, so she wasn't exactly at the height, but then to see all of where she went to and just the matters that she had to face publicly because of her views and because of her take on things. It’s somewhat identical to hip-hop. It's the same thing that a rapper would look to convey or a rocker or anyone who's just defiant in their presentation.

So I think working with Sinead O'Connor, I was a little bit early in my career, so it was a little bit of a fog of how important that collaboration was. And to this day, I have people walk up to me and tell me how much they enjoyed that collaboration and a lot of it has to do with hip-hop, at that point, who even knew it was gonna sustain as a culture for forever?

Stream MC Lyte’s Ain’t No Other below.