Along with partners Rashawnda Guy (daughter of Buddy Guy) and DJ Tasha, Lateefa Harland made up 1/3 of the Chicago born female hip-hop trio Infamous Syndicate which came onto the scene at the end of the nineties and made noise with their single “Jenny Jonez” You can hear her now on her show at 107.5 WGCI hosting segments like “Rock the Mic with Teefa” where Chicago artists get to showcase their talents and promote themselves. I popped by the station to say what’s up.


Hadjy: What happened with Infamous Syndicate?
Teefa: The label we were on went under [Relativity]. I think they were bought out by Loud and we didn’t want go with them. We wanted to pursue our solo careers, so that’s pretty much what’s happening right now.
H: Why didn’t you want to go to Loud?
T: It isn’t that we didn’t want to go Loud, but we wanted to do our solo thing and we weren’t in the position to do that with Loud. We had our time together as a group and everybody wants to go off and do their solo thing, get solo deals and hopefully come back at together at a later date.
H: Didn’t Sony Loud go under too?
T: Recently I think, yeah. But Relativity went under like 2000.
H: Rashawnda Guy and Lateefa Harland. You girls used your real names.
T: Starting off we had the deep hip-hop names. My name used to be “Kinesis”
H: Kinesis? Where did that come from?
T: (laughs) I don’t even know, I don’t even remember. Something about, moving you without touching you. But people feel more comfortable and I feel more comfortable using my real name.
H: Like Eric Sermon and Keith Murray
T: I like that.
H: How was touring with LL Cool J and Beatnuts
T: Aw man that was dope, the Beatnuts tour was our first tour. It was crazy ‘cause, we
did a lot of shows in Chicago, but to go from doing that right into performing overseas
the crowd receives you totally differently. Their open to good music, and once they see
you open up, they open up, as far as here it’s kind of closed minded even if it’s your
people and they know you. Overseas they didn’t give a hell, they didn’t know who we
were. It’s like, “if they’re dope, we’re gonna ride with ‘em.”

Teefa is currently working on her solo debut.