Sweet Tee

Origins

Sweet Tee was born Toi Jackson in Queens, New York, and came up during the years when rap was moving from park jams onto 12-inch vinyl. Her first studio experience reportedly came in 1984, when as a teenager she cut a track called "One for the Treble" with producer and DJ Davy DMX. Two years later she connected with Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor, the producer who was assembling a stable of young talent around his production team, the Invincibles, and his loose crew known as the Idol Makers.

Breakthrough and "I Got Da Feelin'"

With Azor at the boards, Sweet Tee released "It's My Beat" on Profile Records in 1986, a stripped-down showcase for her voice and the cutting of DJ Jazzy Joyce. The record became a touchstone of the era and was later ranked among the best rap singles of 1986 by Ego Trip. Her follow-up paired "It's Like That Y'All" with "I Got Da Feelin'" in 1987, and it was the flip side that traveled furthest. Produced by Azor and the Invincibles, "I Got Da Feelin'" climbed to No. 48 on the Billboard R&B chart and broke into the UK Top 40 at No. 31, giving Sweet Tee a real following in Britain.

It's Tee Time and Later Years

Profile collected the singles on It's Tee Time in 1988, her only studio album. Produced mainly by Azor and the Invincibles, with Sweet Tee co-producing one cut herself, it reached No. 31 on the R&B albums chart and No. 169 on the Billboard 200. "On the Smooth Tip" and "Let's Dance" followed as singles. Sources differ slightly on dating: Wikipedia lists the album as a 1988 release while AllMusic and some Discogs pressings date it to 1989. In 1995 she resurfaced as Suga on JMJ Records, a Def Jam affiliate, contributing "What's Up, Star?" to the soundtrack of the documentary The Show and touring with acts including Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man and Redman. She has continued to release new singles in the 2020s, and a Profile Singles compilation of her work was released in 2021.

Legacy

Sweet Tee belongs to the wave of women who proved in the mid-1980s that rap's biggest records did not have to come from men. She shared a producer and a label ecosystem with Salt-N-Pepa, Kid 'n Play and Dana Dane, and her records helped define the clean, danceable Hurby Luv Bug sound. "I Got Da Feelin'" found a second life in 1994 when the British dance act Tin Tin Out built "The Feeling" around her vocal, taking her voice back into the UK charts almost a decade later.