No. 49: MC Lyte

Though hip hop has always been a male-dominated genre, there were a number of female rappers in the discussion for this countdown. Among the toughest was Lana Moorer, better known as MC Lyte.

I know it's rude to point. I don't care.

Put on thanks in part to her brothers (the group Audio Two), Lyte was still just 17 years old when her debut LP, Lyte As A Rock, became the first full-length album released by a solo female emcee. She followed with four more solo efforts between 1989 and 1996, all of which peaked in the top 20 on the Billboard R&B chart.

Though she achieved most of her mainstream success in the mid- to late 1990s with singles like "Ruffneck" and "Cold Rock A Party," much of Lyte's best work was delivered early in her career, when songs like "I Cram To Understand U," "Paper Thin" and "Cha Cha Cha" proved that she could go line for line with any of the top male emcees of the era.

Still putting out music on her own today, Lyte set a bar back in the day that few, if any, females have been able to reach in the two decades since.