← Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
The Oh. My. God. Becky Edition
01:21:23
What finally got hip-hop to the top of the Billboard charts? Whether conscious or gangsta, trippy or lascivious, rap’s early ’90s arrival at No. 1 started a party—but some rappers literally bum-rushed the show.
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- [00:00]
Various Rap Artists
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music.
- [00:10]
Chris Melanfield
Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number one? Series on today's show. Among the most pivotal years for popular music is 1991, famously called the year punk broke, the unofficial kickoff of alternative nation. The year REM Became a chart topping band, Lollapalooza reinvented the festival concert for generations X and Y, and when Nirvana ushered in the grunge era.
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Various Rap Artists
Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to.
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Chris Melanfield
But for followers of the pop charts, 1991 is pivotal for an entirely different reason. And rock, alternative or otherwise, had little to do with it.
- [01:14]
Various Rap Artists
Spinderella cut it up one time.
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Chris Melanfield
1991 was the year Billboard magazine changed the way it calculated America's flagship pop char a. Then new barcode scanning technology called Soundscan made the charts a lot more accurate and it changed our understanding of how hit making works. Not just the speed with which hits rose and fell, but the hits themselves.
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Various Rap Artists
The year's 1991 NWA back on the streets yo taking out all you commercialized suckers and we on this laid back track and we doing this one kind of smooth so what you gon do Drake kick it and so on. Let the beat forward.
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Chris Melanfield
As we chronicled in our Def Jams episode of Hit Parade, rap had been on the come up on the charts for all of the 1980s. And by the dawn of the 1990s, hip hop was knocking at the door of the top 10, even the top five. But hitting number one on Billboard's Hot 100 and album chart proved exceedingly difficult for rappers. That is, until more accurate data revealed just how popular rap really was.
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Various Rap Artists
I sit alone in my four cornered room staring at candles.
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Chris Melanfield
Before SoundScan, rap generally crossed over when it was danceable, light, even white. But after SoundScan in 1991 revealed the huge potential of more underground or independent rap, the music underwent its first chart topping success and its first pop crossover. Growing Pains. Rappers began to question how mainstream friendly they had to be to get over on the charts.
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Various Rap Artists
Hip hop got turned into hip hop. The second record was number one on the pop chart.
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Chris Melanfield
But don't skip the years just before and just after. Soundscan are among the most fascinating in rap's history. Not only because some of the best ever hip hop was coming out at this time, But because rappers were testing the boundaries of this exploding art form. Die hard Hip hop heads may have disdained pop crossover, but in a way, studying what happened in rap's mainstream is as enlightening as studying its fringes. By 1992, rap could be both catchy and woke.
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Various Rap Artists
Lord, I've really been real stressed down and out losing grounds Although I am black and brown Problems got me pessimistic brothers why does it have to be so damn tough?
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Chris Melanfield
Or it could be catchy and comedic or maybe also woke to the Beanpool.
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Various Rap Artists
Games in the magazines you ain't it Miss Thing give me a sister I can't resist her red beans and rice didn't miss her some knucklehead tried to.
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Chris Melanfield
Diss but all this crossover first came to a head in the closing weeks of 1991. The first week Billboard converted its Hot 100 to SoundScan. And that very week a catchy, exceedingly pop friendly song became, no kidding, the first rap hit by African Americans to top America's barometer of hit making success. Many millions of listeners were grooving to this cross generational, cross racial hit, but some were not so impressed and they tried to literally bum rush hip hop's pop crossover moment. And that's where your hit parade marches today, the week ending November 30, 1991, when set adrift on memory bliss by PM dawn reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 as the whole chart was rebooted with fully computerized data for the first time. Famously, PM Dawn's first and only chart topper is built on top of a prominent sample of a hit from from the early 80s, the British New romantic sophista pop smash True by Spandau Ballet. The sample of True was not only credited and authorized, it was given a de facto seal of approval by Spandau Ballet lead singer Tony Hadley, who even made a cameo appearance in the video for Set Adrift on Memory Bliss.
- [06:36]
Various Rap Artists
A camera pan is a cocktail of glass behind a blind of plastic planks and finds a lady with a fat diamond ring Then you know I can't remember a damn thing. I think it's one of those As.
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Chris Melanfield
I noted, PM Dawn's real chart milestone was becoming the first black rap act to hit number one on the Hot 100. The reason the mention of race is necessary is that rap had been finding its way into number one hits for more than a decade before Set Adrift on Memory Bliss. In fact, the first time any kind of rapping appeared on A number one hit was also in the early 80s, and it was by an American rock group. This song not only mentions rap in its title. It it is in essence a shout out from rock to rap. That's New York punk and new wave band Blondie with 1981's Rob Rapture coming barely one year after Rapper's Delight, the Sugar Hill Gang's breakthrough, which we talked about in our Def Jams episode of Hit Parade, as the first rap song to hit the top 40. Rapture in March 1981 actually topped the Hot 100, becoming the first ever number one song to include rapping. Of course, Rapture is not a full full blown rap song. Blondie lead vocalist Debbie Harry sings her way through two verses and choruses and only starts rapping on the bridge. She launches into her rap with a celebrated reference to graffiti artist, hip hop scenester and CBGB regular Fab5 Freddy.
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Various Rap Artists
Fab5 Freddy told me everybody.
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Chris Melanfield
Who years later would go on to become the first host of Yeo MTV Raps Freddie, AKA Fred Braithwaite, taught the members of Blondie about New York's burgeoning hip hop subculture. But the rest of Debbie Harry's rap is mostly fantastical nonsense about a man from Mars who's eaten cars. As impressive as Blondie's firsthand knowledge of hip hop was, they are not rappers and Rapture does not qualify as rap's first number one hit. It did start a decade long pattern, however, for the rest of the 80s. White Rock and pop acts would borrow from rap on a string of hits, including several Hot 100 number ones from German new wave singer Falco. To droll UK dance pop virtuosos the Pet Shop Boys.
- [09:48]
Various Rap Artists
Sometimes you're better off dead. There's a gun in your hand that's.
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Chris Melanfield
Pointing at your head.
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Various Rap Artists
You think you're mad too unsteady Kicking in chairs and knocking down tables in a restaurant in a West End town.
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Chris Melanfield
These two number one songs, Rock Me Amadeus and West End Girls, respectively, both hit number one in 1986. Whereas the legendary crossover rap song we discussed in our Def Jams episode run DMC's historic remake of Aerosmith's Walk this Way, topped out at number four.
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Various Rap Artists
It wasn't me, she was foolish, she knew what she was doing when she told me how to walk this way she told me to walk this way Told this woman.
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Chris Melanfield
Generally the closer a song was to pure rap, the farther it would peak from the top. For example, in the spring of 1988, Salt N Pepa's Sexually Frank hit Push it was certified gold. In fact, at a time when sales of vinyl 45s were slumping push, it was the only gold record on the entire Hot 100. And yet the song by Salt N Pepa only peaked at number 19 thanks to radio Push. It was underplayed and under reported by some uneasy radio programmers. This despite its blockbuster sales. By the end of the year Push, it was on its way to platinum. Just months later. Wild Thing by Los Angeles rapper Anthony Tyrell Smith, better known as Tone Loke, did even better.
- [11:40]
Various Rap Artists
Let's do. Shopping at the mall looking for some gear to buy.
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Chris Melanfield
Tone Loke's Wild Thing sold 2.5 million copies and was ultimately certified double platinum. That made Wild Thing the biggest selling single in America since USA for Africa's We Are the World. Despite all this and its catchy guitar sample from Van Halen's Jamie's Cryin, Wild Things stalled on the Hot 100 at number two. In the Los Angeles Times, representatives from Tone Loke's label loudly complained that the song had outsold every other record on the chart by a 2 to 1 or even 4 to 1 margin. Again, as with Salt and Pepa, radio and chart methodology held back Wild thing. Nearly 1/6 of all radio stations in America refused to even play Tone Loke. That shouldn't have mattered given its outsized sales, but that was not captured by Billboard's pre computerized methodology. Add it all up and it was mathematically impossible for Wild Thing to go higher than the runner up slot. Rap would need more than big hits. It would need systemic change in the way hits were tallied. But it would take a couple more years to get there. More on that epochal shift after this short break. Before we get back to the show, I want to tell you about Hit the Bridge. If you subscribe to the Hit Parade feed, you already know that the Bridge is our monthly mini episode where we answer your questions, riff on the latest music news, and play music trivia with one listener contestant. But these Bridge episodes are only available in the Hit Parade feed. Which means if you mainly listen to this show from the culture Gabfest feed, you're missing half of the episodes we put out every month. So subscribe to the Hit Parade feed to get even more pop chart geekery. Now back to the show. For about a year, the fun loving party rap approach of Wild Thing seemed to be hip hop's key to unlocking the top of the pop charts. One of Wild Thing's writers, a 22 year old named Marvin Young, redubbed himself Young MC and he scored a hit of his own with the friendlier, even more loquacious Story song bust a move the tongue twisting tall tale bus it about smarties and parties, Poindexters and fatsos and a best friend named Harry whose brother Larry is about to marry and wants you, improbably to be the best man. Reached number seven in the fall of 1989.
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Various Rap Artists
This here's a jam for all the fellas Try to do what those ladies tell us get shot down cause your over zealous Play hard to get Females get jealous okay smarty, go to a party Girls are scantily clad at showing body A chick walks by, you wish she could sex her but she's in another wall like you was Poindexter next.
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Chris Melanfield
Day'S function High class luncheon but no matter how catchy, clean and melodic these songs were, the top of the charts were reserved for more traditional pop and R and B songs from the likes of Whitney Houston, Richard Marx, Paul Abdul and Debbie Gibson. It wasn't until the fall of 1990 that a rapper, an actual rapper, not a moonlighting rock or pop singer rapping a few bars on a lark, topped the Hot 100. But it wasn't a song the rap world was eager to trumpet.
- [15:49]
Various Rap Artists
Yo, Vanilla, kick it one time, boy Yo VIP.
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Chris Melanfield
Robert Van Winkle, a white South Dallas motocross racer turned rapper who adopted the nickname Vanilla Ice, scored a blockbuster with his virulent brain fungus. Ice, Ice, baby. Young Robbie offended rap purists almost immediately after his pop breakthrough, inventing a street hustler backstory that was soon debunked by the Dallas press and pinning his tracks to huge, unmistakable pop samples. Even after a summer in which Ice's labelmate MC Hammer rode a Rick James sample to superstardom with youh Can't Touch this, Vanilla Ice went for the pop jugular. He nicked the baseline of Queen and David Bowie's 1981 rock classic Under Pressure, Which Van Winkle, incredibly, tried to pass off as an original creation.
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Various Rap Artists
Ding, ding, ding ding, ding, ding there's ghost.
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Chris Melanfield
Ours goes.
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Various Rap Artists
Little bitty change it's not the same.
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Chris Melanfield
In spite of, or perhaps because of, all the controversy he generated in the music press, Vanilla Ice sold truckloads of records. Not only did Ice Ice, Baby during the week ending November 3, 1990, become rap's first number one on Billboard's Hot 100, the very next week, Ice's album To the Extreme shot to the top of the album chart, actually ejecting Hammer's album from the number one spot and staying there for 16 weeks. By the end of 1990, to the Extreme had sold 7 million copies. In essence, reinforcing that the hurdles for crossover for white rappers were were simply lower than they were for black rappers. What made both vanilla Ice and MC Hammer seem incongruous to rap Die Hards by 1990 was that rap for several years had broadened its ambitions hugely. Several rap movements and subgenres had added scope and depth to the music well before the 80s were over. Rap was now far more than party music.
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Various Rap Artists
Bang. Caught you looking for the same thing It's a new thing check out this I bring all the roll below a level Cause I'm living low next to the base Come on, turn up the radio they're claiming I'm a criminal since.
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Chris Melanfield
1987, Long Island, New York, rappers Public Enemy had helped launch rap's conscious era. It was PE frontman Chuck D who coined the name, now oft quoted phrase, rap is black America's cnn. PE amped up the political fury possible on a rap record, even beyond the social critique of earlier cuts like Grandmaster flash and Melly Mel's the Message. So respected were Public Enemy by 1989 that Spike Lee, the provocative polemical filmmaker, tapped PE to record the theme song to his seminal movie do the Right Thing. That single and theme song, Fight the Power, is still played at protest rallies and routinely cited among the greatest rap tracks of all time.
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Various Rap Artists
1989 the number another summer Sound of the funky drummer Music hitting your heart Cause I know they got sold Listen if you're missing y' all swinging while I'm singing Giving what you're getting Knowing what I know in while a black man sweating in the rhythm rhyme.
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Chris Melanfield
However, for all the acclaim PE's nation of millions album and Fight the Power single received, neither charted very high in Billboard. The album peaked in 1988 at number 42, although it did go gold and eventually platinum. As for Fight the Power, it didn't make the Hot 100 at all on Billboard's R and B chart. It only got as high as number 20. Even on black radio. PE were a bit fiery for drive time. Public enemy's version of political rap was, if serious and indignant, also animated by a desire for social change. But PE's approach was not the only new one. Complimenting them and rising in parallel to their conscious rap was a more nihilistic vision.
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Various Rap Artists
Wa da da dang Wa da da da dang hey, listen to my 9 millimeter go bang Wa da da dang Wa da da da dang hey, this is krs1. Been to a crag dealer by the name of Peter had to buck him down with my 9 millimeter, he said.
- [21:11]
Chris Melanfield
I had criminal minded, the debut LP by New York's Boogie Down Productions, led by rapper KRS One, is often cited as a progenitor of gangsta rap. Alongside Schooly D's 1985 debut and some early singles by Ice T as a crew from the South Bronx, Boogie Down Productions or BDP were East Coasters. That was rare for Gangsta rapid, which by 1988 had become more associated with the west coast, particularly South Central Los Angeles and especially the MCs of NWA.
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Various Rap Artists
Here's a little something about a Like me never should have been let out the penitentiary Ice Cube will like to say that I'm a crazy from around the way since I was a youth.
- [22:00]
Chris Melanfield
Gangsta Gangsta appeared on Straight Outta Compton, NWA's 1988 debut studio album. Compton didn't even make the Billboard album chart until 1989, more than six months after its release, and despite selling a million copies in its first year, Straight Outta Compton peaked on the chart at number 37. Some of that low chart profile was due to NWA's limited radio exposure, but some of it had to do with the way the charts worked. Through the end of the 1980s, the Billboard charts still operated under a manual tabulation system. Billboard would contact record retailers and ask for ranked lists of best selling albums and singles. Specific sales counts were not employed, as has been widely reported in the decades since this system was retired, Billboard's old methodology was ripe for manipulation. And indeed, books like Frederick Dannon's Hit Men are rife with stories of record labels buying off retailers and DJs to get them to report hits to Billboard that weren't actually selling or being played all that much. Even beyond this corruption, however, the old system created a simple math problem brought on by limited data. A top album may have sold 50,000 copies or 500,000, but not even Billboard had that information. Ranked lists from retailers and radio stations did not give a sense of the magnitude of a hit. This was what had bedeviled Wild Thing and held it back from number one. But what the old chart system also revealed was bias, some of it genre based, some of it racial or cultural. Whether intentionally or unconsciously, record retailers and radio DJs simply reported fewer rap or country titles than they did rock or pop titles for rap in particular. As the music grew in stature, the inadequacies of this old system were laid bare every day.
- [24:19]
Various Rap Artists
They don't never come correct. You can ask my man right here with the broken neck He's a winner to the job never being done he would have been in full effect. The Lady911 was a joke. Cause they all are joking a day to gown shop on him. 911 is a joke. We don't want him.
- [24:37]
Chris Melanfield
In the spring of 1990, Public Enemy's third album, Fear of a Black Planet, was a monster out of the gate. How big? According to a press release from PE's own record label, in its first three weeks, Black Planet sold 1 million copies, a staggering number for a rap album at the time. But you wouldn't know that by looking at the Billboard album chart, where PE debuted at at a modest number, 40 and took more than a month to scrape the top 10. If Billboard in 1990 had been equipped with computerized charts, Black Planet would have been a number one album handily. This wasn't even chart manipulation. The old methodology simply made it difficult for rap to get a fair shake. Only the most commercial rap acts, the Hammers and Versions Vanilla Ices, seemed to be able to cross over. Militant or gangsta acts like PE and N.W.A were rap's other model. Huge on the streets, nowhere on the charts. But there was, if you will, a third way. A crossover hip hop subgenre that turned out to be more influential than anyone expected.
- [25:57]
Various Rap Artists
Contracts you like the way I vocalize we bring it to a compromise My PA won't set up till noon It's a daisy age.
- [26:08]
Chris Melanfield
De La Soul, like Public Enemy, were originally from Long Island, New York. Both crews proffered a cerebral form of hip hop. But De La traveled a very different path. This trio of rappers called Posthenous, Trugoi and Mace and backed by DJ Prince Paul, were at the forefront of a new quirkier style. Conscious rap, but with more melodic samples, loopier lyrics and madcap humor.
- [26:47]
Various Rap Artists
Green is it's the magic number three Somewhere in this hip hop soul community was born three and that's a magic number.
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Chris Melanfield
They called it the Daisy Age. Daisy was an acronym for da inner sound, y'. All. When the trio dropped their first singles in 1988 on the Independent Tommy Boy label, the press latched onto Dela's flight, flower child ethos, tagging the crew as hip hop hippies, a term the trio rejected almost immediately. They even dissed the hippie phrase openly on their early 89 breakthrough single Me, Myself and I.
- [27:39]
Various Rap Artists
Just Pure Blood. Pushing that, we formed an image. There's no need to lie when it comes to being plugged one it's just Me, Myself and I.
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Chris Melanfield
Built off a sample of the 1979 Funkadelic single not just Knee Deep, Me, Myself and I was commercially potent for a rap single. In 1989, it topped Billboard's R&B chart, only the second rap song ever, ever to do so after LL Cool J's I Need Love. And on the Hot 100, it reached number 34, a fairly impressive crossover for such a left field rap hit. But De La were not alone with this nouveau rap template. They came up as part of a loose collective of hip hop troops who called themselves the Native Tongues. Mellower, more playful, Afrocentric and progressive, but less nihilistic than their gangsta brethren. At its core, the Native Tongues collective revolved around three New York De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers. And A Tribe Called Quest.
- [29:02]
Various Rap Artists
Thinking about for past week, the last week, Hands go in my pocket, I can't speak, Hop in the car and Torpede to the shack we gotta go back when he said why I said we gotta go Cause I left my wallet in elsa Gundo.
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Chris Melanfield
By 1989, the native tongues had even welcomed their first sisters, Queen Latifah, a solo MC from New Jersey, and Moni Love, a British MC from London with a very American flow.
- [29:32]
Various Rap Artists
We are the ones who give birth to the new generation of prophets Cause it's ladies break into a lyrical freestyle Grab the mic look at the crowd and see smiles Cause they see a woman standing up on her own tooth Sloppy slouching is something I won't do Some things that we can't flow I.
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Chris Melanfield
Bring up the Native Tongues who between them had no pop top 10 hits at all because they proved remarkably influential on later acts that scored much bigger crossover hits. Using their same woke but groovy template. De La Soul's celebrated album Three Feet High and Rising was widely embraced by white listeners. It was a rap Trojan horse, infiltrating pop, rock and alternative playlists. Alt rock stations played played early De La alongside the likes of the B52s and the Cure. And their samples were rock friendly, ranging from Steely Dan to Hall and Oates.
- [30:38]
Various Rap Artists
No, I can't have none of that. Tell them what to say, Mace.
- [30:46]
Chris Melanfield
But for De La Soul and all of the Native Tongue acts, the movement became both blessing and curse. It left them open for mockery by other rap crews and it diminished them in the media as peaceniks. By the start of the 90s, de la and Tribe were already edging away from the Native Tongues ethos. De La even tried to kill the dark daisy age theme on their second album, De La Soul is dead. The COVID sported an overturned flower pot, and the album playfully picked fights with gangster rappers.
- [31:23]
Various Rap Artists
This is dedicated to all those hardcore acts. Yeah, you know them brothers that we used to look up to that fell the off and now they doing all that R and B rocker. You mean rhythm and blues? No, rapping bull.
- [31:49]
Chris Melanfield
But as Poss Mace and Trugoi were removing themselves from the pop rock crossover equation, other even poppier crews were happy to take over the hippie lane De La left with wide open. When Jersey City brothers Attrell and Jarrett Cordes tried to get their duo, PM dawn, signed to a New York rap label in the 80s, they were told by executives at Tommy Boy Records that they sounded too much like the label's flagship act, De La Soul. Indeed, PM Dawn's first single, Ode to a Forgetful Mind, bore more than a passing resemblance to such De La tracks as Plug Tuning. Eventually the single was issued by a British label, G Street, and the brothers had taken on new names. Attrell became Prince Bea and his brother Jarrett, DJ Minute Mix and PM dawn. Now working with a major label budget. As Island Records acquired G Street, matured beyond their De La Soul influences and came up with their own ethereal sound.
- [33:12]
Various Rap Artists
I used to be friends of reality she used to be a pal Real close to me but she tried to hide from me what was in store Tried to house me But a house has doors I, I was insane and the picture was crazy so the relevance here seems to be a bit hazy But I try to explain this in the simplest terms. She let the props burn and this was my turn.
- [33:31]
Chris Melanfield
On tracks like Reality Used to be a friend of mine PM dawn were De La Soul on happy pills, and their timing couldn't have been better. In May 1991, just weeks before their album dropped, Billboard began converting its flagship charts to the new Soundscan system. At first, the effects were not exactly earth shattering. That, and I apologize, my friends, is Michael Bolton with Love Is a Wonderful Thing, the lead single from the first number one album of the Soundscan Earth era. Time, Love and Tenderness. What can I tell you? It was 1991. No, SoundScan couldn't improve the sound of pop all by itself, but it is difficult to overstate how pivotal SoundScan was to music history. Both Billboard staffers and chart analysts, like your podcast host, treat this moment as the bcad dividing line in the history of charts. Soundscan took advantage of the barcode scanners that had migrated from supermarkets to music stores, and it tallied actual music sales accurately, piece by piece at the retail counter. For the first time, by modern standards, Soundscan wasn't an advanced technology. Actually, it wasn't even all that advanced for the 90s. You may recall that in 1992, as he was campaigning for re election, President George H.W. bush was pilloried in the media for walking into a supermarket and marveling at a grocery scanner. But for the eternally murky and fairly corrupt music business, Soundscan was wondrous. When you brought an lp, CD or cassette to the counter and they scanned the barcode, you were in effect voting for a hit record at that very moment. This changed everything. Virtually overnight. The charts got a whole lot more accurate and the impact was huge, affecting not just new artists, but whole genres.
- [35:56]
Various Rap Artists
Hustle up word I pull the trigger Long grip my teeth Spray to every brother's gone Got my blocks Sewn on with dope spots Last thing I sweat's a sucker Punk cop move like a.
- [36:06]
Chris Melanfield
King when I roll high New Jack Hustler was the leadoff track on the soundtrack to the 1991 Mario Van Peebles film New Jack City. A mix of R and B and rap, New Jack City had been knocking around the middle of the Billboard album chart since March. Its record label reported sales of one and a quarter million copies in its first month. Yet the album hadn't broken into the top 10 in all that time. On May 25, 1991, the week Billboard rebooted the chart with SoundScan data, New Jack City vaulted to number two, right behind Michael Bolton, its highest position in 10 weeks on the chart. Had SoundScan been in effect on the chart two months earlier, New Jack City might well have been a number one album. But it didn't take long for hip hop to go the last mile on the album chart.
- [37:02]
Various Rap Artists
I got a taste for wasting and tasting the blood I heard her when she screamed and dropped Cause the sun caught the slug Relay this to no joy and listen to the straight up men before they ban the boys While I rhyme to the rhythm of a pop Remember the first brother to run is the first to get shot Whoever said they what I say and betray his negativity if they come kick it.
- [37:20]
Chris Melanfield
In the city with me the second full length album by N.W.A. sported the cryptic title E fil for Zagon spelled backwards. That was N words for life. And that was hardly the most offensive phrase on the Jewel case. Song titles included To Kill a hooker and one less bitch. That's what made the chart performance of EFil4Zagin so stunning. In mid June 1991, just four weeks into the new Billboard album chart methodology NWA's new album debuted on the album chart all the way up at number two, the highest new entry on the chart since Michael Jackson's Bad entered at number one four years earlier. In its second week on the chart, the week ending June 22, 1991, N.W.A. had the number one album in the country, an unthinkable turn of events just one month earlier. For six more months, however, the Hot 100, Billboard's authoritative singles chart, was still operating under the old school methodology, and mostly pop songs, not rap songs, were still in command. That included Marky Mark Wahlberg's rap and club music hybrid Good Vibrations, which we talked about in our featured artists episode of Hit Program Parade. Good Vibrations became the second ever rap song after Vanilla Ice to top the Hot 100, reaching number one in the early fall of 91. The fact that only very poppy rap songs by white people people were charting well did not go unnoticed by rap purists. Among those purists were a pair of other white rappers, the duo of MC Search and Pete Nice, aka 3rd Bass. Let's all sing Pop Goes the Weasel.
- [39:48]
Various Rap Artists
Pop Goes the Pop Goes the Whining and the Weasel. I see the Empty Pocket needs a refill.
- [39:54]
Chris Melanfield
In the late summer of 1991, search and nice took dead aim at Vanilla Ice in the Third Base single Pop Goes the Weasel. In their lyrics, Third Base eviscerated the erstwhile Robbie Van Winkle as a phony entertainer and a chef who can't cook. And just in case the object of their scorn was too subtle in the video, Search and Nice administer a beatdown to a Vanilla Ice lookalike as part of the song's spirit of satire, Third Bass built Pop Goes the Weasel out of a big copyright flouting sample of Peter Gabriel's hit Sledgehammer, about as stupid obvious a sample as Vanilla Ice's pillaging of Queen and David Bowie. The irony? All this catchiness made Pop Goes the Weasel Third Base's biggest hit ever and their only single to make the top 40. In order for more rappers besides Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark to top the charts, the Hot 100, like the album chart, would need a SoundScan reboot. But the Hot 100 is a more complicated chart. A hybrid. Throughout its 60 year history, the Hot 100 has always incorporated at least two pools of data sales of singles and radio airplay. To modernize the Hot 100's more complex formula, Billboard would not only need sales data from SoundScan about retail singles, it would also need accurate Tallying of airplay Billboard was on it. Since 1990, the magazine had been testing a parallel technology by Broadcast Data Systems, or bds, which tracked song plays on the nation's biggest radio stations, not the songs those stations reported they were playing or had been bribed by record labels to tell Billboard they were playing the songs they actually played. Finally, half a year after the album chart reboot, Billboard's new singles chart was ready. On November 30, 1991, Billboard relaunched the Hot 100, and PM dawn was sitting at number one.
- [42:36]
Various Rap Artists
A careless whisper from a careless man A neutron dance for a neutron fan Marionette Streets of Dangerous things.
- [42:48]
Chris Melanfield
The new Hot 100 gave Billboard readers whiplash. Singles scattered all over the chart. Many rock singles that had been propped up by overinflated airplay reports dropped 20, 25, or even 30 spots. One little remembered single, Lies, by trippy UK rave rock band EMF, plummeted almost 50 spaces. As for those who did better under the new formula in general, rap got a sizable boost. Houston, Texas rap crew the Ghetto Boys had seen their Dark Story song Mind playing tricks on me. Close to falling out of the top 40 after the Hot 100 reboot, the song reversed course and hit another chart peak.
- [43:36]
Various Rap Artists
At night I can't sleep I toss and turn candlesticks in the dark Visions of bodies being burned Four walls just staring at a nigger I'm paranoid sleeping with my finger on the trigger My mother's always stressing I ain't living right But I ain't going out without a.
- [43:51]
Chris Melanfield
Fight and in the top 10, East Orange, New Jersey trio naughty by Nature saw their ode to infidelity opposite make a comeback, reaching a new high water mark of number six.
- [44:06]
Various Rap Artists
OPP how can I explain it I take it frame by frame it to have y' all all jumping, shout and saying it oh it's for other P is for people Scratch your temple the last P. Well, that's not that simple.
- [44:17]
Chris Melanfield
The thing was, most of these crossover rap hits by black artists relied just as heavily on prominent melodic samples as the hits by their white rapper counterparts. OPP was built out of the Jackson 5 classic ABC flashing ahead about six months, producer Jermaine Dupri pulled virtually the same trick on the debut single by tween rap duo and backwards pants aficionados Kris Kross, who topped the new Hot 100 for eight weeks with Jump, a blockbuster hit that leaned heavily on another Jackson 5 classic, I Want you back. Before PM dawn and Kris Kross, it had been easy for rap purists to diss crossover hip hop as the work of white pop interlopers. The Hot 100 reboot leveled the playing field and proved that all rappers could play this spot. The sample game. But not everybody was happy that rappers, even fellow African Americans, were finally topping the charts. Most especially the conscious and gangster rappers who who had underperformed on the charts in the late 80s.
- [45:53]
Various Rap Artists
That's it. The bridge is over. The bridge is over. The bridge is over. The bridge is over. You see me come and dance with the flipper Sensei down with the sound called bdp. If you want to join the crew well you must see me. You can't sound like shan or the.
- [46:09]
Chris Melanfield
One Molly, Molly remember Boogie Down Productions. BDP frontman man Chris Parker, aka KRS1, had styled himself as rap's teacher, a stalwart protector of the culture of hip hop. Mind you, Chris was not above a little crossover activity himself. In 1991, the very first track on REM's smash album out of Time was the rap rock hybrid radio song on which KRS1 prominently rapped.
- [46:44]
Various Rap Artists
What are you saying? What are you playing? Who are you obeying day after day? Baby, baby, baby, you hear that stuff is driving me crazy. DJs communicate to the masses sex and violent classes. Now our children grow up prisoners all their life. Radio listener.
- [47:05]
Chris Melanfield
Also to be fair, fair to KRS1, he probably would have stayed out of the fray in 91 had Prince Bea, leader of PM dawn, not called him out. In a late 91 interview in Details magazine, fresh off of PM Dawn's chart topping single, Prince B, aka Atrell Cordes, told the magazine he was underwhelmed by the glowering approach of conscious rappers like Public Enemies, Chuck D. As for the leader of BDP, Prince Bea said KRS1 wants to be a teacher. But a teacher of what? The following month, in January 1992, the Kordes brothers were on stage at a multi act concert at New York's Sound Factory. PM dawn were riding high. Their followers hit Paper Doll was already on the Hot 100, rising toward the top 40.
- [48:08]
Various Rap Artists
Imagine yourself as a link on a chain, a chain that's wrapped around someone's mind. If you break off, then things start to change. But then you realize that there's no time, no direction. As you fly through the wind, you stop the ponder on a pink chateau. The theme from Mahogany still transcends a quote unquote. That's the way it does.
- [48:26]
Chris Melanfield
I'm looking at the picture that same winter when the Village Voice issued its annual Paz and Jop poll of hundreds of music critics nationwide. PM Dawn's debut album of the Heart of the Soul and of the Cross, would rank fifth in the poll, a stunning result for a brand new rap Act. But KRS1 wasn't having it. In a move the media would later call the Shove felt round the world, KRS1 and the rest of Boogie Down Productions marched on stage during PM Dawn's set, hijacked the turntables and literally pushed Prince Be and DJ Minute Mix off the stage. Taking the mic, KRS One broke into a spontaneous performance of I'm Still Number One, a track from BDP's 1988 album by All Means Necessary, not by financial.
- [49:36]
Various Rap Artists
Aid, but a raid of hits causing me to take long trips. I'm the original teacher of this type of style Rocking off beat with a smile or a smirk or chuckle Guess I'm not up to BDP possum so I love to step in the jam and slam I'm not Superman because anybody can or should be able to rock.
- [49:58]
Chris Melanfield
A turntable when asked later by USA Today what prompted the bums rush of PM dawn, Chris Parker reminded the reporter of Prince Bea's rhetorical question. A teacher of what? Said KRS1 I answered his question I'm a teacher of respect Running around, spending.
- [50:19]
Various Rap Artists
Money, having fun Cause even then I'm still number 111-11-1111.
- [50:29]
Chris Melanfield
Fortunately, in this incident, no one was seriously injured other than a reputation or two. And given what would happen later in the 90s between the east coast and west coast factions of hip hop, the KRS one versus Prince B contretemps seems quaint today. On the other hand, this was no longer third base, taking easy potshots at Vanilla Ice on Wax. This was a warning shot in an internecine hip hop culture war, a battle between rap's true believers versus crossover achievers. We still hear echoes of this hip hop battle on the charts to this day. This day. As for PM dawn, they survived the KRS1 dust up, although paper doll peaked below the top 20 within months, PM dawn were back in the top 5, this time with a gentle ballad from the soundtrack to the Eddie Murphy romantic comedy Boomerang. I'd Die without you, which contained no rap content at all, was another number three hit in the fall of 92.
- [51:42]
Various Rap Artists
Is it my turn to wish you were lying here I didn't dream you when I'm not sleeping Is it my turn to fiction?
- [51:58]
Chris Melanfield
Six months later, PM dawn were in the top 10 one last time with another clever rap interpolation of an 80s pop smash, they turned George Michael's torch ballad Father Figure into the number six hit Looking through patient eyes I've become.
- [52:17]
Various Rap Artists
Amused, I've become blind, I've become what I know not breathe. You seem illiterate to all my emotions I stand corrected. How well you read, you speak the truth, you speak to me, you feel the.
- [52:36]
Chris Melanfield
It was the last big hit for the versatile Cordis brothers. Attrell, aka Prince Bea, would pass away in 2016 at just 46 years of age from complications of diabetes. In his obituary, the New York Times called PM dawn early progenitors of the blending of of hip hop and R and B, and called Prince B quote underappreciated and quietly influential. Back in 92, however, hip hop's crossover wars were coming to a head. Rapper Ice T, who was gangsta before gangsta rap had a name, decided to moonlight in a thrash rock band called Body Count. Their self titled debut wound up spawning protests from police unions. The track cop Killer. Body Count wasn't even a rap group, but the media elided that genre detail and pegged the project as another chapter in America's culture war. With gangsta rap under fire, Ice T announced that he would drop the track from the album and reissue the cd. What was interesting for chart fans in the new Soundscan era was that this caused the Body Count album to rise to a new chart peak, which of course was better tracked by Billboard's more accurate album chart. But if you want a window into the breadth of hip Hop in 1992, Rapp's first full year after SoundScan, you should focus on two big hits during 1992. Virtually all of the acclaim went to this song and this group.
- [54:31]
Various Rap Artists
Many Journeys to Freedom Made in Fame by Brothers I Born a Play and Ghetto Things I ask you Lord, why you enlighten me without the enlightenment of all my folks? He said. Cause I set myself on a quest for truth and you were set a queen, but I am still thirsty.
- [54:50]
Chris Melanfield
Arrested Development hailed from Atlanta, Georgia, at a time before Outcast, Ludacris and Migos, among others, made Atlanta the official capital of Southern rap. Arrested Development were a large amorphous collective on stage, sometimes AD featured as many as as seven or eight members, including an elderly spiritual advisor named Baba O'. Shea. But the primary leaders were Todd Thomas, aka Speech, their lead rapper and songwriter, and Tim Barnwell, aka Headliner, their DJ. After briefly dabbling in gangsta rap in the late 80s, Speech and Headliner to decided to take a left turn toward a folkier, more rustic and more positive rap style. If their predecessors in the native tongues had ultimately rejected the hippie ethos, Speech and headliner seized it. They were going to be more winsome than De La Soul, more Christian than PM dawn, more openly woke than anybody.
- [56:06]
Various Rap Artists
Dig your hands in the dirt Children play with earth Dig your hands in the dirt.
- [56:13]
Chris Melanfield
Arrested Development's 1992 debut single, Tennessee kicked off with a warped sample of Prince taken from his 1988 hit Alphabet Street. Prince would later charge Arrested Development a hefty fee for use of the titular sample.
- [56:31]
Various Rap Artists
Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee, Tennessee.
- [56:42]
Chris Melanfield
But then Tennessee veered into a more sonically expansive evocation of the Deep South.
- [56:50]
Various Rap Artists
Brothers and sisters keep messing up why does it have to be so damn tough? I don't know where I can go to let these.
- [57:08]
Chris Melanfield
It was a soul bearing reminiscence about the black experience post slavery inspired by the passing of Speech's grandmother and brother, and it closed with a spirit lifting performance by vocalist Dion Farris. Tennessee won near universal acclaim. It topped cross critics polls across both rock and rap media as the year's best single. And it was a huge hit, reaching number one on Billboard's R&B chart in July 1992 and reaching number six on the Hot 100 that same month. To be sure, Tennessee was catchy enough that it might have done well on the old Hot 100. But now that the chart more accurately reflected rap's place in the pop universe, Arrested Development's hit was a cross cultural smash. The very same week that Tennessee materialized on the Hot 100, another catchy rap song also debuted. But this song's lyrical concerns were more, let's say, narrowly focused. Sorry, did I say narrow? There was nothing narrow about this song.
- [58:44]
Various Rap Artists
So ladies, ladies, do you want to roll my Mercedes then turn around, stick it out. Even white boys got the shout. Baby got Back.
- [58:54]
Chris Melanfield
Baby got back was Sir Mixalot's first ever and as it turns out, last top 40 pop hit. But what a hit. Even if you regard it as a novelty record, few singles can be said to have had as great a cultural impact as Baby Got Back mix. A lot. Anthony Ray wrote the song as an unabashed admirer of the physiques of Hourglass shaped women. Especially black women like Ray's then real life girlfriend Amelia Dorsey, who by the way, recorded the song's hilarious spoken word intro in her best imitation white girl voice.
- [59:37]
Various Rap Artists
Oh my God. God Becky, look at her butt. It is so big. She looks like one of those rap guys girlfriends. But you know who understands those rap guys, they only talk to her because she looks like a total prostitute. Okay? I mean, her butt, it's just so big. I can't believe it's just so round. It's like out there. I mean, gross. Look, she's just so I like big.
- [60:09]
Chris Melanfield
Butts and I cannot mix a lot, wrote Baby Got Back to celebrate his muse, Amelia, and all women of that body type. It was his version of body positivity, a lascivious and objectifying form of feminism, to be sure, but also candid and relatively progressive about body types. Years before Jennifer Lopez reoriented beauty standards in favor of callipygian bodies, as Sir Mix A Lot himself recounted on National.
- [60:43]
Various Rap Artists
Public Radio, basically pop culture was at that time waif thin, big hair, and that was what they thought beautiful was. Anything other than that was not considered beautiful. It made women who had naturally curvy bodies the Serena Williams. The Beyonce's of the world at that time would always run around with sweaters wrapped around their waist.
- [61:05]
Chris Melanfield
Baby Got Back was a track from Mack Daddy Sir Mix A Lot's first album on Deaf American Records, a label run by Rick Rubin. You will recall Rubin as a prime mover from our Def Jams episode of Hit Parade. He founded the original Def Jam label, and while there he produced Run dmc, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. Def American, the successor to Rubin's former Def Jam, was where Rubin signed Mix A Lot. And just as Rubin was an innovator in the 80s convincing Run DMC to reimagine Aerosmith's walk this way as a rap song, he was instrumental to the final sound of Baby Got Back. By Mix A Lot's own admission, his original recording was indebted to, though not a sample of, the the minimal synth sound of German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. But it was Ruben who convinced Mix A Lot to drop the music entirely on some of the song's best lines, including the now immortal My Anaconda don't.
- [62:31]
Various Rap Artists
Want none unless you got buns hon, you can do side bins or sit.
- [62:36]
Chris Melanfield
Ups Mack Daddy may have been Mix A Lot's debut on Rubin's label, but it was far from his first album. Anthony Ray was a self starter and well before Baby Got back, he'd built a fairly unique hip hop career for himself.
- [62:54]
Various Rap Artists
My posse's on Broadway and my wheels spinning Slow rolling with your posse is the only way to go.
- [63:03]
Chris Melanfield
In the mid-1980s, mix a lot founded his own Seattle label, Nasty Mix, and recorded a string of albums and singles that were favorites among Car Bumping rap aficionados. The song Posse on Broadway was such a word of mouth hit, it kept his debut album swas on the charts for more than a year where it eventually went platinum. His follow up album Seminar went gold and spun off two hits, the Ode to 90s Tech Beepers and the Ode to Drop Top Cars.
- [63:40]
Various Rap Artists
My Hooptie, My Hoopty Rolling Tailpipe Dragging Heat Don't Work and My Girl Keeps nagging six' nine Buick Deuce Keeps Rollin One Hubcap Cause three Got stolen this.
- [63:54]
Chris Melanfield
Put Sir Mix A Lot in a unique position when he arrived at Rick Rubin's doorstep. He already had a sizable following, one that cut across hip hop subgenres from old schoolers to gearheads to gangstas. Mix A Lot had indie rap credit before SoundScan. It would be hard to imagine an artist like him topping the charts, but Mix A Lot picked the right moment to go pop. Baby Got Back was a blockbuster.
- [64:25]
Various Rap Artists
I like big butts and I cannot lie you other brothers can't deny that when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing.
- [64:33]
Chris Melanfield
In your face, you get sprung landing on the Hot 100. The same week that Arrested Development debuted with Tennessee, Baby Got Back went all the way, reaching number one by the 4th of July 1992. It stayed on top for five weeks and went double platinum, the second best selling single of the year, topped only at the end of 92 by Whitney Houston's smash I will Always Love youe. At the end of the year, Billboard announced that Baby Got Back was the year's no. 2 song behind Only Boyz II Men's late breaking hit End of the Road. Meanwhile, as Sir Mixalot was scoring his chartbuster, Arrested Development were in a way taking an even bigger victory lap. Their debut album, three Years, five Months and Two Days in the Life of was shaping up as a corporate cross cultural smash. And unlike Mixalot, their album generated follow up hits. Just three months after Tennessee peaked in the top ten AD were back with the number eight hit People Every Day, an interpolation of Sly and the Family Stone's 1969 classic Everyday People. Four months after that, Mr. Wendell, a tale of the lessons learned from a wise old homeless person reached number six. This made Arrested Development the first rap act to pull three top ten pop hits from a single album since MC Hammer in 1990.
- [66:24]
Various Rap Artists
Here have a dollar. In fact naw brother man, here have two. $2 means a snack for me, but it means a big deal to you. Be strong, serve God, only know that if you do Beautiful heaven awaits. Ask the poem I wrote for the first time I saw a man with no clothes, no money, no plate. Mr. Wendell, that's his name. No one ever knew his name.
- [66:45]
Chris Melanfield
It is hard to overstate how esteemed Arrested Development were at this time. Remember Spike Lee, who tapped Public Enemy to record the theme from his acclaimed film do the Right thing for his 1992 epic Malcolm X? Lee asked Arrested Development to record the theme. AD were taking their place as conscious rap's leading light.
- [67:12]
Various Rap Artists
My ancestors slapped me in the face. And.
- [67:29]
Chris Melanfield
By the start of 1993, Arrested Development were collecting a slew of shiny objects that included a triple platinum plaque for their dark debut album, Three Years, five Months and Two Days in the Life of Again, the best selling rap album of any kind since hammer. By the mid-90s, it would go quadruple platinum. The album also topped the 1992 Paz and Jop critics poll, only the second rap album to do so after PE's it takes a Nation of Millions To hold us back in 1988. And as for the 1993 Grammy Awards, Arrested Development took home gramophones not only for Best Rap Performance by a group, but also Best New Artist, the first rap act to win that prize live on the show performing their hit People Every Day AD were respectability, politics personified, rapping about about avoiding confrontation with gangstas and brothers who were, quote, going the N word route. No rap act had ever won such universal plaudits from the critics, the charts and the Grammys like this. But maybe Arrested Development, like the Starland Vocal Band or Milli Vanilli before them, should have regarded that Best New Artist trophy as a curse. Their culture commanding moment would soon be over as the public finally embraced gangsta rap as pure pop. Doctor Dre's album the Chronic was a watershed in gangsta rap. It was just as edgy as Dre's former troupe, N.W.A. but its tales of South Central LA were sweetened with melodic keyboards and samples of smoky 70s R&B plus. Most seductive of all was the inimitable flow of a rapper still in his teens. Calvin Brodus, AKA Snoop Doggy Dog Give.
- [70:08]
Various Rap Artists
Me the microphone first so I can bust like a bubble Compton and Long beach together now you know you in trouble cuz ain't nothing but a g bang baby 2 low f g so we crazy Death Row is the label that pays me unfadable so please don't try to fake this but back to the lecture at hand.
- [70:26]
Chris Melanfield
Sonically, Dr. Dre's breakthrough hit, Nothing But a G Thang, a number two pop number one R&B hit in the spring of 1993 had little to do with the sound of either of Arrested Development or Sir Mix A Lot. But it is telling that when gangsta rap finally topped the singles charts, it not only came after these popular rap acts had opened up top 40 playlists, it also followed a model closer to Mixalots, a self starting street mogul who translated a trunk bumping sound for the masses. After Dr. Dream Dre, hardcore rap no longer needed to compromise its sound or even its subject matter to cross over. Whether it was from Dre's former NWA colleague Ice Cube, Warren G, Regulators.
- [71:34]
Various Rap Artists
It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. Warren G was on the streets trying.
- [71:38]
Chris Melanfield
To consume some or Snoop Dogg himself.
- [71:43]
Various Rap Artists
With so much drama in the lbc, it's kind of hard being Snoop Deago Double G. But I somehow someway keep coming up with funky. Yeah, this like every single day.
- [71:54]
Chris Melanfield
Indeed, for the rest of the 1990s, the hot 1100 would be topped repeatedly by gangsta rap tracks, whether from Bone Thugs in Harmony, Tupac andre. Or the Notorious Biggie. Chart topping gangster rap also meant that neither Mix A Lot nor Arrested Development were going to have an easy time following up their hits. Sir Mixalot decided to go with what worked the first time, following his ode to Posteriors with a sequel about bosoms. His 1994 flop put him on the.
- [73:04]
Various Rap Artists
Glass Girl let it all out and that's what she did baby ain't no kid 36ds I make a man's head I'm putting in work on the freeway fast Cause she put him on the glass.
- [73:18]
Chris Melanfield
It did not chart anywhere. That same year, 1994, Arrested Development issued their long awaited follow up album, which they gave the Afrocentric title Zingalama Dooney.
- [73:42]
Various Rap Artists
I need some time I need some time.
- [73:50]
Chris Melanfield
Whether it was the album's earnestness or just the time that had passed since their debut, AD's 94 album was a huge sophomore slump, generating no top 40 hits, peaking on the album chart at number 55 and never receiving all a gold certification, let alone platinum. Of course, after their Amazing Run in 1992 and 93, Arrested Development had a lot to be proud of. They would continue touring and recording for the next two decades while never coming close to their historic debut. And other than Lauryn Hill in 1998 and Outcast in 2003, no rap act would ever match Arrested Development sweep of the critics, the Grammys and the charts in 92 and what about Sir Mixalot? Perhaps the smartest thing he ever did was writing his biggest hit by himself. Because it contains no samples, Baby Got Back's publishing belongs entirely to Anthony Ray, and that has proved quite lucrative because that song may well outlive him.
- [75:07]
Various Rap Artists
My Anaconda don't My Anaconda Don't My anaconda Don't want none unless you got.
- [75:14]
Chris Melanfield
Buns hon Blink Twain Baby Got Back remains ubiquitous more than a quarter century later. It has been sampled, covered, referenced on TV and and in movies, most prominently. Nicki Minaj essentially covered it in 2014, turning its funniest line into her number two hit Anaconda.
- [75:39]
Various Rap Artists
Look at Her Butt.
- [75:47]
Chris Melanfield
About a decade earlier, comedic indie folk geek rocker Jonathan Cole would transform Sir Mix A Lot's hit into a light acoustic cover that was the most successful viral hit of his Thing A Week music series. How successful? In 2013, Colton's version of Baby Got Back was covered practically note for note by Fox TV's hit show Glee. And because Colton's version was considered a new arrangement but not a new composition, only Sir Mixalot earned formal credit from Glee.
- [76:43]
Various Rap Artists
You ain that average groupie. I've seen them dancing to hell with romance.
- [76:59]
Chris Melanfield
The song still crops up in the most unexpected places. Whether sung to a Baby by the characters Ross and Rachel on TV's Friends. Or sung by a trio of animated bunnies in the movie sing oh my.
- [77:28]
Various Rap Artists
Gosh, look at Her Butt.
- [77:30]
Chris Melanfield
If modern rap doesn't sound much like Arrested Development, it also doesn't sound much like Sir Mixalot. But his hit's legacy is, thanks in no small part to the Billboard charts becoming more accurate and more comprehensive back in 1991. The Hot 100 now not only incorporates sales data from SoundScan's successor, Nielsen Music, it also factors in streaming from Spotify and Apple Music and videoplay from YouTube. Anytime a rap hit scales the Hot 100 thanks to a viral phenomenon, such as when 2016's Mannequin Challenge fad sent Ray Schremmer's Black Beatles to number one. It's hard not to think of the Baby Got Back phenomenon.
- [78:21]
Various Rap Artists
That girl is a real crowd, please Small world All her friends know of me young.
- [78:35]
Chris Melanfield
As for Sir Mix a Lot himself, he is good natured about the fact that his career has been dominated by one song entirely dedicated to his love of women's derrieres. You would be too, he claims. It has grossed tens of millions of dollars, possibly more than than 100 million over its lifetime. And wherever he performs Sir Mixalot is welcomed by armies of women who love the song's celebration of curves. And they can rap every word. One night in 2014, Sir Mixalot took to the stage in his hometown accompanied by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. In addition to a conductor, strings and woodwinds. On stage with Anthony Ray as he wrapped his hit for the ages were more than 100 spirited new friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. My producer this month was Dan Bloom and we had help this episode from Danielle Hewitt and Chris Barube. The managing producer of Slate Podcasts is June Thomas, our senior producer is TJ Raphael, and Gabriel Roth is the Editorial Director of Slate Podcasts. Check out their roster of shows@slate.com podcasts a word of thanks and farewell to our former executive producer Steve Lichti, who has left Slate Podcasts for an exciting new role at NBC News and msnbc. Two years ago, Steve was instrumental in the launch of Hit Parade. He even produced and edited our first show himself. Steve, we will miss you and we will forever be in your debt. We are playing an extra hour of both R.E.M. and Miley Cyrus at Slate headquarters in your honor. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture Gabfest feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other lists listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one I'm Chris Melanfield.
- [81:15]
Various Rap Artists
Baby got back I love y' all baby.