COVER STORY : Papa Said Knock You Out : May May has her dad’s verbal skills, but her own rap: to deliver a spiritual message

A young rapper dressed in casual hip-hop gear lounges on a couch at the Santa Monica offices of Scotti Bros. Records, her head framed by an autographed poster on the wall behind her that freezes the moment in movie history when battle-weary Rocky Balboa’s fist finally connected with Apollo Creed’s mahogany chest.

Under a small black hat festooned with flowers, almond eyes twinkle mischievously and a warm smile illuminates the wide, heart-shaped face.

It’s a startling vision of the familiar in a new context: May May. At 23, the statuesque woman is the oldest child of Muhammad Ali--and as they say in the South, she looks like he spit her right out of his mouth.

The resemblance goes beyond appearances. It’s about the mystery of genes, the fascinating inheritance of intangibles, elusive personal traits we try to pin down with words like aura , essence , personality .

“I don’t think she realizes fully how much she is like her father,” says Amelia Patterson, May May’s close friend and partner (neither woman likes the word manager ) who, ironically, once worked for Ali’s nemesis, boxing impresario Don King.

“To be very honest and not just because I’m working with her, she is the most like him of all his (11) children. When I read the Sports Illustrated issue on Ali’s 50th birthday, I’m telling you, I cracked up, because I thought I was reading about May May. She’s so much like him, it’s unreal.”

The more time one spends with May May (real name: Maryum Ali), the more one sees the irrepressible and engaging young Muhammad Ali transposed to female form, bursting with verve and purpose and gazing with the eager confidence of youth at a world waiting to be conquered.

Muhammad Ali may have been born to box, but his gifts transcended the ring. His outrageous boast and insult verses prefigured the posturing and “dissing” of today’s rappers with such unforgettable poetic images as “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” or:

I predict that he will go in eight

To prove that I am great.

And if he want to go to heaven,

I’ll get him in seven.

His daughter jabs with equal power, through word and sound.

“The Introduction,” May May’s debut album (due in stores on Tuesday), features 16 tracks of mike-chanting as agile as Latifah, as sweetly resonant as M.C. Lyte. (See review, Page 70.)

From “Ya Head Is Dead,” an indictment of the type of violent and sexually explicit rap that she brands morally irresponsible:

Ya preach about Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

But on the flip side you wanna use your sex cause

Ya head is dead

Corrupting the morals of a minor

That’s what I said

In the marketing-conscious record business, where any celebrity tie is usually enough to land a contract, you’d think companies would have been fighting to get May May’s signature on the dotted line.

What better gimmick? Daughter of the Greatest.

But, argued record executives, “real” rap comes from ghetto offspring, not celeb brats.

So May May spent four years trying to persuade someone to take a chance on her. During that time, she paid the bills from her earnings as a stand-up comic, not from daddy’s pocket.

Although she worked various clubs across the country, May May joined the Comedy Store stable almost immediately after she moved to Los Angeles in 1987. Her act focused mainly on racial issues but, unlike some heavy-hitting comics, she kept her humor light. She liked to include a rap or two in her show and at the end of her act she would sometimes let on who her father was with quips such as:

“When I was growing up, my father was very different from other dads. Instead of teaching me nursery rhymes, he would make up his own: ‘Hush Little May May, please go to bed, before I get a Frazier flashback and knock you in the head.’ ”

Besides going against rap’s “ghetto” stereotype, the young performer had another strike against her: a spiritually conscious, uplifting approach that went against the hard-boiled trend that prevails in rap.

“I was everything most female rappers weren’t,” she says. “When I started going to major labels, they were just getting into rap and wanted to copy everything that was out there. I know a lot of them didn’t take me seriously by the way they talked. But that just gave me more and more ammunition to kick butt, especially when Janet Jackson came out.

“She was the sister of Michael, but she killed because she had the talent. And that’s the only thing that matters: Do you have the talent? The downfall is if they know anything about your history, that’s all they know and all they think about. They think about Ali or Michael. It didn’t really bother me. . . . I just kept struggling and got more and more motivated. I improved, everything improved, from people turning me down.”

May May may not be ghetto-bred, but she’s no little rich princess either. May May was 8 when Ali and Belinda Ali divorced. Along with May May’s twin sisters and brother, the children eventually moved in with their maternal grandparents in a middle-class area of Chicago.

“My mother was doing photography and acting; my father was remarried, so my grandparents were solid,” she said.

“We were always going between my grandparents’ house and my mother’s, and I said, ‘Hold it! I want to be normal. Let’s just stay at our grandmother’s house and have them raise us.’ And they did. We are four from my mom and dad, but right now I have 10 brothers and sisters, and we’re very close.”

But her parents’ divorce was particularly painful for the oldest child, May May, who always craved more of her father’s company.

“I was in third grade when my parents split up,” May May says in her father’s autobiography, co-authored by Thomas Hauser.

“I was young, but I could see what was going on. And even in third grade, I got disgusted. Veronica (who replaced Belinda in the boxer’s life) was around a lot. My mom was bitter. There was a lot of tension. The divorce was written up in the papers, and it was hard for me in school. The other kids never teased me about it, but I’d overhear people talking. I guess what made it easier for me was my grandparents explaining things as I went along.”

May May credits the example of her father’s disciplined training regimes and her grandparents’ strict upbringing with instilling in her the virtues of modest living and hard work.

“I wasn’t raised in a mansion,” she says. “I mopped the floors for $5 a week and I was at public school where everybody treated me normally. I didn’t get everything I wanted. I also saw my dad a lot when I was growing up. And I knew that my father didn’t just go in the ring; I watched him train for months. I was always a hard worker.

“In high school, I was in basketball, volleyball and track, and you couldn’t win without practicing. My grooming was, ‘Practice makes perfect.’ My grandparents gave me my foundation and my father really hipped me to handling worldly things: the con artists, the tricksters.”

May May also considers herself “blessed” by her Muslim faith, which she is careful to distinguish from the “very positive . . . but very politically and racially oriented Nation of Islam. Muslims follow the Holy Koran revealed by the last prophet, Mohammed,” she says.

“Muslim doesn’t mean, ‘One who submits to black people’ (or) ‘One who submits to a man’ of any kind. We have a belief system that involves God, you and humanity. There are white Muslims, Chinese Muslims, Jews who became Muslims. Anybody can be a Muslim. The primary focus is to improve yourself, and then fight for your rights.”

Because she received so much attention as the child of a social and cultural icon, she learned quickly to be wary of people’s motives.

“I was very observant,” May May says now, matter-of-factly. “(When) I saw a bunch of strangers around him, I looked at everybody. Being the oldest, I tried to protect the other children. Even though I wasn’t really protecting them, I thought I was. I never wanted to be taken advantage of. I never wanted to be put in a bad situation to be pressured. If I didn’t understand something, I stayed away from it until I found out. And I’m like that now. I like control. I’m a preparer. I’m organized.”

Part of what May May wants to control is her public image. She loves her father and wants to honor him, yet she is trying to separate herself from him in order to succeed in the rap community on her own merits.

Her first television appearance was on his recent birthday special, during which she performed “Ali,” the final dance-floor pounder from her album.

Drenched in samples drawn from Ali’s rope-a-dope oeuvre , the track is neatly intercut with May May’s rapping tribute to her father and ends with her heartfelt, “I love you.”

Skillfully balancing on a fine line between a daughter’s love and an insightful homage to a contemporary hero, the song is guaranteed to produce moist eyes along with moist brows.

“I’ve been wanting to do a dedication rap to him--using his voice--since I’ve been rapping professionally,” she says. “I love him, I respect him, I love that people love him, and I’m blessed to have him as a father.”

But the track further cements the connection between May May and the champ, despite May May’s fears that the public--especially black youth--will identify her as another privileged “child of” who is merely indulging this week’s fantasy.

“I would never want to get away from being his daughter because that’s my father and I came from him,” she says. “I’m a part of him, but that’s not my foundation in the rap community. That’s not why I’m doing rap; that’s not what I’m using to get what I want. If they can’t accept that that’s my father, then they’re jealous. That’s a personal problem. My foundation is not Muhammad Ali.”

May May was scribbling poetry back in grammar school and checking out rap as far back as the Sugar Hill Gang, but she didn’t seek a professional rap career until she moved to Southern California four years ago to attend USC, where she majored in TV/film production.

College was her fail-safe plan in case rap didn’t work out.

Few classmates knew who her father was.

“I like it like that,” she admits. “I don’t mind if they know, but I don’t say, ‘Hey, I’m Muhammad Ali’s daughter.’ I’m very fascinated by how people change when they realize who my father is. Some people treat me like crap, then when they find out, they become overly nice. I don’t have any time for them. Some people are nice, then they find out and they’re still nice. I like to see the phoniness in people. It’s just unreal.”

While May May has no problem asserting herself (she even advised a photographer how to set up the best shots), she seems unusually sensitive to other people’s feelings.

“When my father first came out as Cassius Clay, they thought he was arrogant, but then they realized he wasn’t and they love him,” she says, with a trace of pride. “When people get to know me, they say, ‘You’re so cool; why are you so cool?’ They don’t know how I was brought up; a Muslim is supposed to be humble, not arrogant.

“Everything is in God’s hands, not in your hands. I think I’m more down-to-earth than anybody, so I have to deal with them learning me,” she says.

May May says she has her eye on the heavyweight rap crown not for stardom’s sake, but to present young people with an alternative. And that, she readily admits, is part of her inheritance.

Her raps snap with the requisite street edge, but they’re imbued with a spiritual perspective that is laid out loud and clear in the third verse of her hip-hop corrective, “Ya Head Is Dead:”

Yo talk is cheap

Unless your words are brought to life

Do the famous do what they say a-huh yeah right

Prancing around the world taking all that money jack

Some ain’t even thinking about giving back

“I want to be an alternative for young people,” May May says. “I want to show them you can be cool, hip, look nice, have talent, and you don’t have to be nude. I’m accountable for everyone I influence--that’s my religious belief. If I’m a star, blessed with talent and a record deal, and I actually influence someone in a negative way, that’s on me.

“Most artists will say, ‘That’s not my problem, I’m an artist, I do what I want, First Amendment.’ That’s their right, but I’m going to strive to help. My thing is the young people because they start off innocent, and they’re pressured to learn the wrong things because of other people’s cockiness.”

Because rap music is tied to the culture of black youth, May May feels a special responsibility to that audience.

“Black people don’t have someone to look up to anymore, and the ones who are trying to be leaders are not famous and can’t make their way up like the Malcolm Xs and the Martin Luther Kings. I think the fact that those two were assassinated scares a lot of people. They’re backing off.”

She’s careful when it comes to specific criticism of her peers in rap, but it’s clear that she disapproves of the way some rappers latch on to such current buzz-words as Islam and Malcolm X .

“There’s a lot of ignorance about Malcolm X,” she says, speaking with almost as much energy and speed as she uses when rapping on record. “People disregard the awakening he had to the possibilities of brotherhood after his visit to Mecca. Kids like to jump on the bandwagon instead of going to the source. If you want to wear a Malcolm X hat, read the story of Malcolm X.”

May May closely monitors every aspect of her career. She hand-picked virtually everyone involved in the album project, including producer Stevidub, with whom she co-produced five tracks.

With her family lineage, she’s a natural target for the media, but she’s been leery about stepping out into the limelight, carefully screening requests for interviews and rejecting many.

“We signed May May for her talent as a rapper, and it’s important to establish her as an artist regardless of who her father is,” says Chuck Gullo, vice president and general manager of Scotti Bros. Records. “We knew if the focus of her initial exposure to the world was on her being the daughter of Muhammad Ali, the rap community would not accept her.”

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, the video shoot for “Life’s a Test,” her first single, proceeds at a breakneck pace.

After a morning filming people interacting with actors on downtown L.A.’s streets, cast and crew are on a Hollywood sound stage, encircled by miles of intricately linked lights, wires, ropes and pulley systems.

Director Lionel C. Martin’s crew swarms over three sets: a window view into a child’s bedroom, a corridor of “tests,” (eye charts, optometry equipment, a reading instruction mobile, a driver’s test and the Koran, the guide for life’s tests), and a wooden platform stage backed by a huge sheet of blue paper on which the street footage will be superimposed.

Dynamic in black jeans, boots and cap accented by silver jewelry, May May is focused on a small girl miming racial confusion for the cameras. The child looks back and forth from the white doll in her left hand to the black doll in her right. She suddenly coughs, ruining the take.

The sequence is completed, and May May begins warming up for her dance. She prances in place, eyes wide and staring at a point straight ahead in space, her mouth pursed in concentration. Still prancing, May May animatedly tells producer Stevidub a story, enacting the different voices, laughing and grabbing him by the shoulder.

Jason, one of three dancers May May cast from the Vertigo club dance floor, joins them, sporting a sweat shirt emblazoned with May May’s face. “Make sure you do this,” she jokes, and opens her arms wide, “to show the shirt.”

May May climbs on stage. The instrumental track booms out, and she tiger-stalks with the fierce, fluid strength of a woman warrior, lip-syncing the lyrics.

This life is a test, I must confess

‘Cause I’ve learned from the very best

Holy verses say: You must live to give

Step right up, I’m a tell you how it is

You started off an innocent, infant child

Results being either mild or buck wild

Midway through the lengthy take, she makes a tiny mistake, invisible to all but her. A quick expletive, and May May’s back in step, joining the two male dancers behind her for the chorus--a frenetic but highly choreographed freestyle jam.

Offstage, she confers with Stephen Nicholas, a dancer-choreographer from Compton. “I can’t get this!” she pants. “Yeah,” Nicholas concurs, “but you played it off.” The shot is in the can, but May May retreats to a far corner of the sound stage. Over and over, throughout the filming of Jason’s boneless solo, she works to conquer the step, breaking only when it’s time to take the child who plays her 7-year-old alter ego by the hand and climb on stage for their duo dance.

At 8 p.m., everyone is smiling. It’s a miracle shoot, wrapped one full hour ahead of schedule. “Pretty cool,” May May says with a sigh. “That’s it!” she crows in sudden realization, and the sound stage rings with loud applause.

A photographer assembles cast and crew for production stills. As they wait for the shutter to snap, someone shouts, “The latest from the greatest!” and everyone spontaneously points to the radiant May May. “Don’t do that!” she protests, pleased but a bit embarrassed. “Don’t do that!” they chorus back teasingly, and they keep on pointing to the star.