In honor of Women’s History Month, a look at the female artists, managers, and architects who have shared the stage, studio, and spotlight with one of hip-hop’s most prolific DJs. Long before DJ NABS became known internationally as the DJ who toured with Michael Jackson, he was a teenage DJ Nabisco Disco in Durham, North Carolina, making history behind the turntables for two young women, among the few who dared to pick up the mic first.
In 1987, NABS became the DJ for The Icey Girls — Shirlene “Frosty” Merrit and Tiwanda Mayhue — Durham’s pioneering female rap duo. Frosty secured a deal with the legendary Tommy Boy Records and released “I Need LLove Now” in 1987, earning national radio airplay and launching a short touring run that carried NABS and the group well beyond North Carolina’s borders — including a memorable stop in Toledo, Ohio and Columbia, South Carolina opening for hip-hop legends DJ Jazzy Jeff, Eric B and Rakim, UTFO, and Spoonie Gee. This gave NABS his first real taste of what life on the road could be and prepared him for the next move in his career.
Relocating to Atlanta brought NABS into the orbit of the Mauldin family — and eventually into the professional care of Lucy “Juice” Raoof. A Murphy, NC native, Lucy serves as the Vice President of Operations at Mauldin Brand Agency, alongside music industry visionary Michael
Mauldin. She has an instinct for the business of music that few in the industry could match, she became NABS’ manager, negotiator, and de facto compass — having a role in securing his Columbia Records artist deal, negotiating his radio contracts including Hot 97.5 in Atlanta, and the full range of professional relationships that would sustain throughout his career. For a young DJ far from Durham, she was also something no contract could define: the figure who made sure her artists were looked after consistently and with genuine care.
NABS was brought on as So So Def’s exclusive tour DJ — sharing stages with Da Brat, the first female rapper to go platinum, and Grammy-nominated R&B quartet Xscape throughout the 1990s. His work with Da Brat has been long-standing, spanning over three decades. In 1994, his studio artistry extended to singer Dionne Farris, earning turntable and scratch credits on her critically acclaimed debut Wild Seed – Wild Flower on the track “Stop to Think,” featuring Lenny Kravitz and produced by Randy Jackson; the two reunited on stage at Durham’s Art of Cool Festival in 2019. In the early 2000s, NABS co-starred alongside rapper turned Love & Hip Hop reality star Rasheeda on Turner South’s original television series B Street Live — a program dedicated to showcasing the region’s most talented unsigned artists — and laid his scratch signature on her Motown Records debut Dirty South (2000). In 2007, he contributed a promotional remix for Capitol Records R&B group Cherish on their single “Unappreciated” — the kind of behind-the-scenes industry work that rarely makes headlines but speaks directly to his standing among peers and labels alike.
His independent label Em City Recordings has been another vehicle for championing women in music, most notably through in the 2019 collaboration with rapper Solé — on recordings “Highs, Mids, Lows” and “People Love a Show” — with the partnership continuing at the 2019 Funk Festival in Atlanta and the African-American Cultural Festival in Raleigh, NC in 2025. Additional collaborations include the 2020 production “Closed Casket” featuring sister rap duo Fire and IIce, and work with Atlanta native Amazin Taste, featured on the track “MMM” which appeared on The Take Over 2 by The Cause2K and NABS.
But NABS’ commitment to women in music has never been conditional on commercial outcome. Throughout his four-decade career he has worked with, produced for, and managed female artists whose contributions to the culture deserve to be named: Chyna Whyte, who joined him on stage at Atlanta’s One Music Festival in 2018 and recorded on “Babylon” and “Dat 808” from the T3 project; Aziyah Joné, featured vocalist on the NABS-produced “10 Keys”; and Lady X, Gaylene B, The Feisty Girls, Double Xposure, Jersey Peach, and Whyte Chocolate — artists he took on as manager, producer, or a collaborator, investing his relationships, resources, and reputation into music careers that didn’t always reach mainstream.
From 1999 to 2000, NABS was the official DJ for Nickelodeon’s All That Music & More Festival — working with emerging singer Monica during the 1999 run and R&B group Blaque in 2000, documented by major press outlets across the country. That same year, he took his craft to arena scale again as tour DJ on Mariah Carey’s Rainbow Tour, followed by a run with Ciara spanning Screamfest ’07 and an internationally documented 2007–2009 touring stretch through Asia. His bond with Ciara has proven enduring — NABS shared the stage with funk legends Earth, Wind & Fire at her 2016 wedding to NFL quarterback Russell Wilson, and most recently performed at the Why Not You Foundation’s three-million-dollar fundraising dinner at MetLife Stadium in New York in 2025.
As In the Lab with DJ NABS marks its 30th anniversary, the thread running through his decades of work alongside women in hip-hop and R&B tells a story built show by show, track by track, and generation by generation — signed or independent, celebrated or overlooked. NABS believed in their talent and showed up for all of them.
“I believe that women are essential to the betterment of the world, and I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting and working with some of the greatest women in the music business. Women who have pioneered and persevered through this industry, breaking barriers and shattering expectations.”
— DJ NABS
† In Memory of Tiwanda Lynnette Mayhue
This press release is dedicated in part to the memory of Tiwanda Lynnette Mayhue — known on stage as Tawana of The Icey Girls — who passed on June 2, 2023. A Durham native, Durham Public Schools graduate, and lifelong artist, Tiwanda was a DJ, rapper, beatboxer, and poet whose creativity never dimmed. In February 2020, she attended a welcome-back celebration for DJ NABS at Durham’s historic NC Mutual Tower — now the Provident 1898 building — reuniting with him after decades apart. It would be the last time their paths would cross. She passed before NABS could honor her at the Back When It Was Rap Festival, a celebration of North Carolina’s hip-hop pioneers that she helped make possible long before anyone was keeping score. Her family remembered her as “Poetry In The Light.” She was 53.
♥ In Recognition of Lucy “Juice” Raoof
No accounting of NABS’ career and the women behind it would be complete without naming Lucy “Juice” Raoof — a Murphy, NC native who carried the same quiet determination from those Carolina mountains all the way to the top levels of Atlanta’s entertainment world. As Vice President of Operations for Mauldin Brand Agency and Owner and President of Juice Unlimited, an international business consulting and special events firm, Lucy brought the full force of a Master’s degree in Education and four decades of industry experience to bear on NABS’ career. She negotiated his artist deal with Columbia Records. She secured his radio contracts, including his landmark role at Hot 97.5 in Atlanta. She shaped the business infrastructure behind every major milestone in his professional life. She was the manager, the. strategist, the advisor — and for a young DJ far from home, she was something even more essential than all of that. She was the mother figure who made sure her artists were protected, guided, and seen. NABS has trusted her with his career for over forty years. It is with great honor that he celebrates “Juice” gives her the flowers she deserves for helping him reach this milestone.