December 28, 2022 • 43 mins
This week, we take a brief pit stop in our crazy ride through 1992 for something extra juicy: an unfiltered, free-flowing chat with rapper-producer Sir Mix-a-Lot, the man behind the most famous pop song about behinds ever made.
In an expanded interview from our first episode, we chat about the origins of his hit No. 1 single “Baby Got Back,” the on-set drama during the making of its music video, and why Mix thinks the track helped spark the body positivity movement and change representation of Black women in the media. Plus, he reveals his least favorite use of the song in popular culture, explains why Nicki Minaj personifies “Baby Got Back,” and offers some advice to Lizzo.
Be sure to tune in Wednesday, January 4, when we return to our regularly scheduled 1992 programming. In that episode, we’ll tell the story of Sinéad O’Connor and her scandalous 1992 performance on Saturday Night Live, during which she ripped up a photo of the Pope and told audiences to “fight the real enemy.”
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Where Were You in ninety two, a podcast
in which I your host Jason Lafier, look back at
the major hits, one hit wonders, shocking news stories, and
irresistible scandals that shaped what might be the wildest, most eclectic,
most controversial twelve months of music ever. This week, we
take a quick mid season break from our ride through
(00:26):
for something extra special, a conversation with none other than
rapper and producer Sir mix a Lot, the man behind
the most famous pop song about behind ever made. In
the interview that follows, I chat with one of music's
biggest champions of the ample ass I like to call
him the Bootyguard. We discussed the origins of his hit
(00:47):
number one single Baby Got Back, the onset drama during
the making of his music video, and why he thinks
the song helps spark the body positivity movement and change
representation of black women in the media. Plus extraveals his
least favorite use of the song on popular culture, explains
why Nicki Minaj is Baby Got Back, and offer some
advice to Lizzo. Be sure to tune in Wednesday, January four,
(01:11):
when we returned to I regularly scheduled programming In that episode,
we'll tell the story of Shanide O'Connor and her scandals
performance on Saturday Night Live, during which she ripped up
a photo of the Pope and told audiences to quote
unquote fight the real enemy. Where were you in ninety two?
(01:36):
Mixed mentally, physically, you know, in that in that monumental year, mentally,
I was kind of all over the place, to be
honest with you, Um, I came out of a massive lawsuit. Uh,
while at the same time I got signed by probably
you know, one of the gods of hip hop production.
I mean just you know, I mean just not not
(01:57):
just because of what he's done in the past, but
how we think. Um, he eats, sleeps and breathes and stuff.
He does. It's not about the money. He finishes it
then let somebody else make it about the money. And
I love that. I love that vibe. Um. And I
wanted somebody that m had been in the business for
a little while. I wanted to learn something. I didn't
just wanna you know, people sit in the room and
(02:19):
kiss ask for a while. I didn't want that. I
like the fact that it was somebody that knew more
than I did. So Yeah, it was. It was really hard. Um,
that lawsuit cost me a lot of money. And this
is a nasty mix, right yeah, your initial label, which
can can you tell me a little bit about the situation.
I know they put out your first two records. Uh yeah,
it makes it's funny because I never really had animosity.
(02:41):
That's not what it was about. Really, it really wasn't
um nasty makes. It was an independent, independent label, and
everything is kind of you know, you're trading off. You
gotta give to get and it's a lot of ass kissing.
You know, a lot of a lot of that stuff
was going on. I had to run around and hit
distributors up to make record sales and stuff like that.
And it just reached a point where I thought, you know,
(03:02):
we had a we had a platinum ablement swausum. We
had another gold album in seminar right after that. We
were we were on a roll. But things didn't seem
like they were. Um, it always seemed to be I
always seemed to be a year behind on royalties, ands
and and things like that, and just some basic disagreements.
It was no I hate you or you hate me.
I still love those guys, um, you know, and and
(03:24):
the way that label started. But I knew that before
I did this next record, I needed to try something
a little bit different. And because of those differences, I
thought that was a jump off point for me at least.
And this is when you decided to work with Rick Rubin. Well,
I wish I could say it was just my decision.
It I didn't know where I was gonna go during
(03:46):
the during this lawsuit, I mean it was. It was
literally even if I had won, it wouldn't be a
win because they probably wouldn't really want to keep that
relationship going, right, so I would have been stuck. But
I but there was just some things I thought I
had to do. And I'm sure they have but opposing opinion,
or maybe they agreed, maybe they agreed that we should
have part ways. I don't know. But um, Rick just
(04:06):
happened to call Well, Heidi Hydi Robinson just happened to
call Heidis Rick's publicists. Yeah, Rick publicists. And yet I
had no idea what did that to do with. I thought,
you know, maybe he wanted to license something there. I
didn't know what it was. And uh, long story short,
she got me on the phone with Rick after a
couple of couple of calls and and of course I
(04:27):
was intimidated, like hell, this was like damn, this is
Rick Ruban, Dude, I mean, shut up and listen. And
I remember when I got ready to sign to do
that's kind of another artist that he had signed, Um
said the same thing. He saw me at the shared
in Universal and he said, when Rick speaks, man, just
shut up and listen because he won't repeat himself. So
that's where I got all that from. So there was
(04:47):
there was a moment I think of I think, you know,
not so much tension, but a little bit of back
and forth with you and Rick about releasing Baby Got
Back as the lead single for your third record, Mac Daddy,
which was your first with Death American. You weren't keen
on I'm making that the lead single, Um, and you
(05:08):
actually had your way. You actually did get your way,
and you put out a different first single, One Time's
Got No Case, That's correct, And it was actually I
mean you had your heart was in the right place
and had a good message behind it, yeah, which was
about racial profiling. Yeah, what it was about racial profiling,
and and it was it was stuff that actually happened,
wasn't I don't. I don't. I don't do the storybook
(05:28):
gangster stuff. Right, if it didn't happen, I didn't witness it,
or it didn't have something to do with me, I
don't talk. I hate that. I hate that fakes here, Yeah, yeah,
yeah it was. It was a thing where this is
something that all artists do, and I think it's very
dangerous because it could be career ending. Very seldom is
it career making. Everybody thinks it is, but it's actually not.
(05:49):
I think artists always have this, this this push because
they have this belief. I think artists to make it,
they have to believe that the world's against them, right,
so everybody's the boogeyman, You're the boogeyman. And I got
pro view, all so right, I wanted to do a
track that wasn't Baby Got Back esque first to prove
some stupid ass point to some myth methical, mythical character
that didn't want me to make it in life, right,
(06:12):
and that that person didn't exist, right. But so Rick
kind of basically let me hang myself. He said, okay,
you go ahead, and I'll be here when you get
done with that, and he he paid paid for the
video and did everything he was supposed to do. I
can't knock him as a label. Did what he was
supposed to do. And then I had to, you know,
then tail between my legs and crawled back, going, hey man, yeah,
(06:32):
let's do this thing your way. Let's see what you
can do. So I pretty much did something I usually
don't do, and that I just fell back and I
want to you know, this guy does this right. I
thought I was doing it, but obviously I was wrong,
and I let him kind of do it his way.
I mean, I had my idea for I knew what
maybe got back into me um, and I didn't push
(06:53):
that on Rick because I wanted his interpretation what he
felt when he heard it, because I knew if I
gave him what I felt, it would come off heavy,
heavy handed, and people that really didn't want to hear
that at that time. I let him do it his way, really,
and and then when we got into the video and
all that stuff with with Adam, Um, that's when I
(07:15):
started to assert myself a little bit more and I
wanted to make sure, how do we give Rick what
he wants, which is something wink wink, not not clever
fun on the surface, and then get my message, the
underlying message to come through at the same time but
not be overbearing. So it was a balancing act um
that I knew I couldn't handle because I would go
(07:36):
too far one way. And Rick modulated that stuff back
towards the center. And then I laid on the gravy
with the message with subtle lyric changes and and stuff
in the video. And when you sat down to write this,
I mean, of course it's a very funny song. It
spawned countless covers and parodies and cameos over the past
(07:59):
three decades. And of course, yeah, it's a lot of
fun and and and you know, I've read that the
rickonounced you to increase the tempo of it um to
make it a little less quote unquote gangster in a
little bit more like just like danceable and fun. And
but when you sat down to to to write the song,
it wasn't meant to be a joke. You had a
genuine intention. Yeah, it's something that any African American basically
(08:22):
that has any any you know, reference back to James
Brown and referenced back to Parliament Funkadelic with Motor Booty
Affair and and Chocolate City. Um. They realized that there
was a black pride had to be. If you didn't
ride with it, you die without it. And that's the
way we looked at it. And I, you know, and
I felt like, what was happening If you go back
(08:45):
to that era, there were two types of African American
women that succeeded in Hollywood. I'm and I'm generalizing, so
don't let's not. I don't want somebody to point out
one person in nineteen seventy five or whatever. But basically,
you either had to assimilate to white culture or you
were the the underestimated made that worked for a white
(09:09):
family and they would advise the children on what to
do correct because mom just didn't get it. Or you'd
be the street wise hooker on an episode of Law
and Order. Um, and and that was it. You know,
you always played or you know, or or stereotypical roles prostitutes,
drug addicts, stuff like that. I hated that. I couldn't
stand that. So part of the idea of Baby Got
(09:33):
Back was I was it was gonna be a hard
hitting song. It was not meant to be a single.
Then it became funny, and I said, you know what,
let me, let me pull back on the lyrics and
quit being so dark and make it funny. And and
Pope fun at at Cosmopolitan. At the time, they were
the definers of all things beautiful, I guess, and um
(09:54):
I disagreed with their stants. Um I saw a couple
of movies with an actor I wouldn't name who was
an a a an American that said some things, and
I realized it was in the script, so I can't
knock it, but it was kind of glorifying um Glutya's Minimus,
as I should say. And now you guys, I'll probably
know what movie is. I'm not knocking in because he's
a comedian that light my ass up. But it was
(10:15):
that kind of script that defined him as the norm
and the guy that liked the curves was not. And
I wanted to flip that because any black man knows
is what we've We've been liking that from day one,
and from what I find out now, Hispanic men have too.
So it's it's like a thing, you know that we
um I wanted to talk about, but when we talked
(10:37):
about it, it came off like we were bitter. So
how do I write this song in the way that
George Clinton wrote Chocolate City, in a way that didn't
come off bitter. It was just reality. So I'm only
a Dorsey Grievous was your girlfriend at the time, and
she was struggling too. She had struggled, you know, to
become a model herself. She was doing I believe she
was doing makeup, um gigs and working with a lot
(11:00):
of models. Um who were you know, these tall, gangly,
very thin uh women, And you know, you were just
sort of mystified by the fact that she couldn't get
the jobs that she wanted and and and she was like,
well just look at my look at my ass because
she wasn't she didn't match the standards that you you know,
(11:23):
we're just describing, right. And the thing about it, it
wasn't just her, Um, the main girl and baby got back,
the one on the pedestal. And I hope to get
to that because people need to understand what that video
really was, what it meant, um. But she had to
say problems, right, And it's amazing how many And I'm
we're not talking about women shaped like me. It's not
(11:43):
we're not talking about a girl shape like a tank.
Here's what's ironic. I went to another video director before Adam,
and we talked about what we're talking about right now,
and I said, Okay, how can I make him understand
what I'm saying, because he thought I meant fact, No,
I'm you know what I mean. I mean, I don't know.
That's not what I'm talking about. So then I said, okay,
(12:04):
I think Marilyn Monroe. When I said that to him,
I thought he was gonna go, oh, okay, he goes, well,
when I think Marilyn Monroe, I think prostitute. I'm like,
what the hell is going on? Then I realized this
song ain't just black, this ain't just a black thing.
This is across the board, and I started realizing, Wow,
(12:24):
this is so. I really knew then that the song,
if I broaden the message even more, i'd get more fans.
But I didn't know i'd get up to this level.
I think that had more to do with Rick Uh
and the video, which, in all honesty, a lot of
parts of it I didn't think I would like until later. Yeah,
so you had to cast the video, of course, and
(12:46):
you wanted to make sure you were casting you know,
the right women, and so tell me about the casting process. Well,
the casting process was a little interesting because you had Um,
the choreographer. She one of the best dance I didn't
really care about the best dancers. I wanted to look,
so the ones with the look weren't the best dancers.
(13:09):
The one with the best dancers didn't have the look
I wanted. You know, they did, I mean, they'll done
be wrong. They had the curse. But you know, I
wanted really to hit that knocked that message home. So
we ended up compromising, and she got the dancers that
she wanted, and they were fine too. I don't get
me wrong. It's not like I was going I don't know, no,
not like that, but I got There were three women
(13:30):
I wanted really big, big time. One it started the
video on the pedestal, definitely Um. Two was a girl
you only see her for a blip dancing when I say,
only if she's five three her and then obviously um
WHITSI Whits was like, Hella cool and she's the one
that's doing the kind of the the burlesque kind of
with the fan. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted those three
(13:52):
big times and I got those. So we kind of compromised,
and I totally underestimated though, the scale of this video,
because I I've done videos before, but it was, you know,
poor man videos. I've never madeor label behind me. And
when I saw the cameras alone scared because I'm like,
what is this eyewitness news? I've never seen cameras that big,
and oh yeah it was. It was interesting. It was interesting.
(14:16):
It was a lot of compromising going on because I'm
trying to explain the song and without I can't explain
the song without explaining our culture. So it came off
as preachy. Every time I brought it up, people are like,
oh my god, this again, but they I think, I
think that Adam got it, and I think the choreographer
got it, but I got her point to that she
(14:36):
wanted the best answers, of course. And by the way,
the coreo is the corio in this video is I
had forgotten how tight it is, you know, and it
really it's just just so much going on and and
the high kicks, you know, at that right at the
right moment, with the and the and the whip cracking,
and it's just it's very, very tight. When you were
(14:56):
doing the casting, of course, you had to make sure
you had the right the right boot ease. So you
had to actually, you know, take polaroids of dancers, um asses,
and then Adam had to send them to you, right,
and you had a whole grid, yeah, of asses to
look at. Right. Yeah. I picked up a bunch, but
ended up only getting those ones because obviously the dancing
(15:17):
was so so crucial. But but the basic and to
think about this video that I wanted from the gate,
from the start was I didn't want to be I
didn't want to try to be hypocritical, right I was.
I was into chasing chicks. You know, I was young, right,
I didn't want it to look like all of a sudden,
I'm really a sensible guy who understands that this is
(15:38):
not No. I wanted to be the horror in the
video that didn't get the girl. That was the whole idea.
That was the reason that you know, and we'll get
to that. That was the reason that the main girl
was on a pedestal. That was that was done by design.
I wanted her above us. I didn't want us to
be able to reach her. I never touched her in
the video, never even got close to her. Neither did
the two girls in the beginning. That was all intentional,
(15:59):
and it was to send a little bit of a
message that I see these as queens. I can't even
reach them with my horse ass. That's the way I
kind of dealt with it because I didn't want to
flip everything I had done prior on its race. And actually, no,
I wasn't like that. No I was. I was young
and uh trying to trying to please myself. But it
did work with her, and that's what I wanted. So
(16:21):
when you arrived to the studio, you weren't initially impressed.
You were you know, you said earlier you were a
little into many by other cameras. Also, you had had
this conceit that you were gonna have this giant ass
in the video that you were going to be on
top of or initially you were gonna be coming out
of it, but that was that was discouraged. So you weren't.
(16:42):
You got you see this ass, and you were not
you you you didn't necessarily embrace it immediately that it
was a big, yellow paper mache looking ass right what day.
I didn't know it was gonna be that big. First
of all, that was like a planet that was not
a that was not a that was a planet, man,
that was like Mars, Like they rolled it in and
(17:04):
just I'm looking at this thinking of like, okay, and
I had on all brown and my guys just oh
my god, it yeah, you look like a dancing turd,
like a piece of ship on the giants. So it
was a lot of that. But I'd say, you know what,
I'm gonna go with it. You know, this is this is.
It was a little bigger than I expected. But I
(17:25):
came from the Independent, you know world, and I realized that, Okay,
I'm I just and I don't usually do that. I'm
not a control freak, but at the same time, I
don't do anything that may compromise me later. But I
just didn't think it would. I said, you know what,
I'm gonna trust the process right here, because I had
to right to say no at any time. And I
went ahead and went went through with it. Man, and
(17:45):
once it was editing and stuff. A matter of fact,
once they even started there, I noticed that they kept
me in the process. They kept asking what do you
think it is? What do you think of that? Which
I really really I respect the fact that they did that,
because that video could have gone wrong. In a lot
of ways. There was costume drama as well. You know,
I remember some kind of goofy shorts, real super tight
tagger kind of shorts and necklaces, and it was just
(18:08):
really nasty, right, And I'm like, this is the opposite
of what I want. You know, I don't want her
to be hood rat. I don't want her to be home.
I wanted her to be just fine, that's it. And
I want her to be seen as the norm and
let these other chicks come off as you know, haters,
and that that was what I wanted. So it wasn't
(18:29):
a big deal. I heard some rumor that I should
pulled a gun, pull a gun on a makeup artist.
Did this happen or not? Was there a gun or not? No,
because I know at the beginning, Rick was really kind
of pushing the guns, you know, for your image. No,
I I've always been at the guns I got. I
got a bunch of upstairs right now. But you ain't
man a black man traveling across state lines in the
(18:53):
nineties during the Gang era to make sure he could
defend himself against a makeup artist. That's it don't even
make sense. Do she she think you were was did
she think you were doing it? Were you actually pulling
something else out? Were you just kidding around there? What? What? This?
This shocked me when I saw this, that there was
maybe a gun pulled on a po costume designer. Yeah,
(19:16):
who was trying to persuade you not to look like
a piece of ship, a literal piece of ship in
your video? No? No, that that's that's a lie right
there too. Where the problem with the wardrobe came in
wasn't what I had. It was what Sharne, who was
not Almen, her name is Alm, what she had on.
She didn't like it, and neither did I. Needed My
guys were like, dude, you do this, it's gonna look
(19:36):
like a super flat movie. And a lot of people
did not like it, and I didn't like it. So
I was ready to just kill the whole video. Because
she didn't like it either. She said, you know, I
walked over to it. She goes, they got me looking
like a hoe, like a straight prostitute. But I was
talking about it. Maybe he got back with a woman
who was better than me. I didn't want her to
(19:57):
be my prey. That being said, I'm not mad at
the costume designer because if you look at videos in
that era, that's what they were, including some of mine. Honestly,
I mean that's what they were. They were girls, you know,
popping that ass, and that was that was that was
the dance that back then, and I still love that.
But I wanted to take this up a notch and
(20:18):
let women know, you know what, Yeah, we all like
something sexy and this and that, but at the same time,
you guys are queens, and they've always been the queens
of the black community, the women. If it wasn't for
the women, Yeah, with the asking any black person, they'll
tell you. So you had to make a last minute
trip to the mall, right and come up with another
outfit for her. Yeah, yeah, it was just a little
yellow something, little yellow dress or whatever, but that was
(20:39):
not what she had. Only got there and and and
I went to the mall got it. Everything was straight,
Like I said, there was no I didn't. I did
get piste, but I did not blic over some shorts. Uh.
I think the power and just saying no is it
is a little bit better you do this video. You
(21:10):
got a hit on your hands, starts to build some buzz.
You start to you know, to to tour for MC
daddy U and uh, and then you discover at some
point someone informs you that the video has been banned
from MTV on camera. Yeah, and this is the first
(21:31):
that this was the first that you had heard. Yeah, well,
we were on this tour. We started this promotion tour.
Keep in mind song hadn't it wasn't even out yet,
because when we started this tour and like Mark, song
came out in May. Al right, so song comes out
I think May seventh or something like that, and uh,
you know, we're going from city to city, We're on
(21:53):
a bus and it's this It's we're not I'm not
making any money. All my money is going salary because
I had a gigantic crew because obviously one of the
help help people to get used to that image so
they can see it in the video because we're the
same people. So we get on tour, go through Corpus Christie, Texas,
and that was the first time we had helicopters over
(22:14):
the show. I'm like, is somebody in trouble because you
know we started the show. I'm serious, I got this
on video first show, maybe a hundred people. We went
to an autograph signing that this record store or whatever.
It's like eight people there. There was nothing happening, right.
We get down to Texas and its pack and then
(22:35):
we go forward and where we hit a place, um,
Panama City, Panama City, Florida. Um. I'm walking in. I'm
videotaping because I'm shocked about next door as a hotel
next door to the club. The club is sitting on
the water and the dance floor was the swimming poop.
They would cover it at night, you know. But I
(22:55):
look over here at this this uh, this hotel and
it's like every single balcony was packed, and I'm wondering,
what are they. Maybe they're looking at the water and
what are they. I didn't know it was me. I
had no idea walking in and you hear the club
owner go and this week it was just announced the
man with the camera has the number one record in
the world, in this country or whatever, and I'm like,
(23:18):
he goes, baby got back and I started laughing, and
you hear me said, yeah, right, you know, we're nobody
believed it, right. I had an assistant at that time.
Her name was Christy. I said, Christie, we didn't go
number one, like not that I know of Keep in mind,
we didn't have these back then, right, so there was
no there was no yeah, and we didn't even have
(23:39):
the internet exactly. Yeah, cell phones like a dollar fifty
a minutes, you know, and who thought you know? And
he said it, and then the crowd it was packed.
They knew every word. They were passionate, like did we
really go number one? And I still didn't know. Um,
we didn't believe this guy. We left and when we
got to the next city, then I saw a picture
of the charts and I'm like, oh, hell to the know, Yeah,
(24:04):
I went number one Billboard charts man. And then the
band well it went. Yeah, it rode for a little while.
It got to five weeks, and we were head at home,
and you know, we didn't we knew. The song was
blowing up on MTV like crazy. While it was number one,
(24:25):
it got well they say it got I guess demoted
or moved to another time slot. That's not the way
I remember it. I remember it being banned initially, and
then I started to see it at nighttime after nine o'clock,
which in essence killed the song, you know, on on
MTV didn't kill so I thought at that time my
career was over. I thought, wow, he just took he
(24:48):
just snatched the hit right from my hands and killed it.
And then I started to think a little differently, and
I started to think, you know, maybe not, maybe not.
And then Heidi Robinson said something to them, and I
only think she remembers it. But I talked to Heidi
the other day and I told her that. She said that.
She's like, yeah, you know, so she may not remember
because it was just a Heidi call. And she goes
(25:11):
because she used the publicist on this project. And she said,
I said, you know, you hear we got banned, and
she said, yes, I hear we got banned. And I'm like, okay,
what does this mean. I remember six this exhalet Well mix.
You're now Elvis Presley and you shook your leg one
too many times on the Ed Sullivan Show. I will never, ever,
(25:33):
ever in my life forget that. Because I realized, oh ship,
I'm the forbidden fruit and that never dies, you know.
And I realized, maybe not, you know, maybe this thing,
even though yeah, it came down to charts because it
was all but forced down, but all of a sudden women,
(25:54):
which was good, she started to understand so I pulled.
I got to Nebraska. I remember a bunch of women
were boycotting uh me coming to town because they thought
it was I was a sexist pig, and I debated them.
I didn't debate them. I just did a live thing
on the phone with the radio station, kind of moderating
and keeping things going, and I explained to them, yeah,
(26:15):
you can call me sexist, because I probably have been.
I didn't because you you're gonna lose credibility if you
say you never. Yeah, he's chase women like any other
young cat. However, the woman I'm talking about in this
song is the unobtainable. Listen to the whole song. I
never get her. I want to, but I never get her.
I didn't say she was mine. I didn't do any
of that kind of stuff. And I said, don't call
(26:36):
her no bitch. I say all of that. So once
I explained what I meant what I meant, the girls
didn't love me, but they didn't boycott the show. And
I think that was a turning point where women started
to talk and go, wait a minute, this ain't this,
ain't this ain't ass song, and then black women started
to walk up and say thank you. That part probably
(26:56):
hit me more than anything else on the on a
grand scale, just from city to city to city. And
I'm talking about little kids, and I'm talking about twenty
year old girls, talking about thirty year old women saying
thank you about time. My mom was a very strong
woman and a lot of hers and Baby Got Back.
Not that I'm talking about my mom's black, because I'm not,
(27:16):
but a lot of what And she even liked the song,
which tells me something because my mom would tell me
straight up. My mom never used the N word one
time in the house. You know, she didn't believe in it.
She hated it, um. But she also uh didn't like
Uncle Tom's. She didn't like people that would get in
front of white people and put on, for lack of
(27:38):
a better way of saying that, black face, not literally
but figuratively and kind of stepping step and fetch you
and tip tap dance and all. She hated that. And
she don't ever do that, honey, no matter how much
money you make, don't ever compromise who you are, because
once you do, you can't take that back, can't get
it back. And she's right. What did she say about
Baby Got Back? Specifically, Initially she was like, I don't know, baby.
(28:02):
She listened to the song, she said, I don't know
because she didn't really catch the message. Then she saw
the video and she looked at it and you could
see her kind of doing math, going okay, she's good.
She's she reads and she studies all this kind of
like she likes plots and uh as. She kept watching
it and kept watching it and kept watching and she's like,
(28:24):
that's a good song. And she's never said that to me, right,
my mom was she let my mom group was bb king,
you know. She she wanted that kind of stuff. So
she actually understood what that song was about. And that
felt good at my sister who had God rest her soul. Boys,
she she knew it right out of the gate. She
knew it right, she said, thank you boy. She's ad
(28:45):
my baby brother spitting it so so not everyone was
so supportive back home now in Seattle. So Seattle was
you were trying to carve out a path for you know,
Seattle hip hop. You know, most people, especially at point
in history. You know, by by the end of the year,
you had you know, East coast versus West coast. You
(29:06):
had dre coming in Snoop Dogg. You know, there wasn't
a whole lot coming out of Seattle. You were really
you were really and then you know, you were really big.
You were one of the first tackable planets came. And
then of course years later we had you know, Mcamore
and and De Satisfaction and UM and Saba's Palaces. So
you were really kind of putting Seattle hip hop on
(29:30):
the map. And you know, by the way to listeners,
you know, Mix was doing this in the late eighties
with his first two records as well. UM, but not
everyone was, you know, super super thrilled back home. I well,
what do you think? What do you think Do you
think it was just jealousy? Do you think it was
Did you think that when they heard Baby Got Back
(29:50):
they thought, is this really hip hop? Is this what
hip hop is becoming? No? I think what it was
is that for some reason, Um, I was the poster
child for Seattle hip hop. I shouldn't have been. So
I think that that was the problem is that I wasn't.
I never considered myself Seattle hip hop. I always wanted
(30:11):
to be an outsider on the hip hop side that
could give it to you. If you wanted them that heat,
and a lot of people when they hear me, do
you know other songs where I'm spitting fire, like Daddy's
Home and stuff like that, They're like, WHOA, I didn't
really know you could come like that. And I only
do that now. I didn't do it then, so it
(30:32):
kind of baby got back plus and what I mean
plus is plus years. Some people saw that at Seattle
hip Hop. They didn't even look back at Swass and
seminar Um and yeah, so I'm not mad about that.
I never was mad about that. I was a little
disappointed that that the business, the record business didn't come
to Seattle and go what else is out here? They didn't.
(30:53):
They didn't sit they didn't sit around because there were
other groups out there. But at that time, and this
is another myth that I want to dispel, people go,
well you didn't, you didn't put so and so on.
Who did? Then? I don't remember too many cats that
had the power to walk into a major and go
(31:14):
sign this guy. You know, I couldn't even do it.
And I mean I kind of helped a little bit
with Nasty Mix because I like Criminal Nation a lot.
I went out and saw im I like, man, I
hope they get signed Criminal Nation because they're good, and
they did. But I couldn't just walk into Rick's office.
So I'm a new artist, right. He saved me from
a downspiral. Now I'm gonna walk in and go. I
(31:36):
got these five artists signed. Yeah, just signed him because
I said so. No, that didn't fly. That's a that's
a myth from back in the day. What nobody put
nobody on, at least not in my sunario. That's always
been a kind of a thing that's frustrated me. Not
that I was hated. That's normal in hip hop. You know.
The guy that gets the pop success is gonna get this.
What did you really get? Did you? Did you really
(31:57):
get death threats after this the success of any out back? No,
well I got, you know, yeah, but not because the
baby got back. The death threats came from people that
just had beef. But I think I think I think
some of them thought, you know, that I got soft
because of they didn't. You know, I didn't get a
lot of that beforehand, you know, but afterwards. The only
(32:21):
thing I would say back to a cat it would
give me a death threat is you got my address
and the death threats on the record, and I think
they knew what that meant. It's like if you think
I'm a roll up like a bit and be like,
oh please, don't come in my house and take me out. No, no, no, no, Now,
I'm not gonna be out there on the street. I'm
not no gangster. I don't do that. But it was
just small time, you know, stuff people do when their kids.
(32:42):
That's all that was. I didn't really take none of
that serious, honestly, As I said earlier. There have been
countless covers. Yeah, it's been on Glee of course. Nicki
Minaj just a few years ago sampled it for Anaconda.
That was beautiful, exposed it to a whole new audience. Um,
the whole new generation. Um. Do you have a favorite
(33:07):
usage of that song and popular culture or do you
have a favorite cover or a favorite parody? Wow, you
know they got back what I remember when Nicky, when
Nikki put out in the Condom. First of all, I
loved it. I love the fact that you know, a
lot of people may not know Ice teas. I want
to tell me she was looking for me, right, Nicky,
(33:28):
something about doing blah blah blah. So I got a
number somehow and got in touch with her and we
only talked about five minutes. What I liked about it
is that she was in charge. Let me said that again.
She was in charge. She wanted she knew the production,
she wanted, she wanted to DJ, she wanted to use
the scratch, and she wanted me to do this. She
(33:48):
wanted me to do that. And I realized she is
Baby got Back. I didn't realize it until when that
video came out. Everybody's like, well, she's not talking about
the sisters not get in respect, like because she's showing
that it's changing. She is the example of what I
was talking about in Baby and it's well, I were like,
(34:09):
what I what the underlying message message was I should say?
And um, yeah it was. That was That was cool.
There's been some uses that I've been ashamed of. I
ain't'na get into that, but well, you gotta have me one.
You gotta give me one that you're ashamed of. Oh man, okay,
anybody listening. Nobody listening. Uh, there's what I did for
(34:33):
Burger King that the guy that directed a brother, he
did the you know the WHATSI back in the day
that bud Wise. Okay, he did those ads and it's
me uh lufer rig No, No, what's to do that?
What's the dude something Mstrada? What's his name? The guy
(34:53):
used to play the cop man. All those people are
in it, man the cheesiest Oh my god, I was horrible.
It was like I I should have never done that.
They paid me a lot of money. I think it
was Burger King. Was it Burger King? I think it
was Burger King. I don't want to dis burger King
if they didn't do it, but I didn't like that
at all. Hopefully they sold something from it. But yeah,
(35:16):
that's what I learned quickly. How your license Baby Got
Back from this point forward needs to be taken more
seriously because you can through in the legacy of a song.
What's really interesting going back and watching this and and
reading you know, what you said about it in previous
interviews like it. You know, Baby Got Back was a
step forward not only in you know, the body positivity movement,
(35:40):
but also in black representation, black female representation. What do
you think of where we are now with the body
positivity movement? What do you think of someone like Lizza? Yeah,
you know, here's the thing this is um and I'm
proud of Lizzo. Here's the thing thing that why you know,
(36:01):
it's still not right yet Lizzo has to say it.
You know, you see what I mean when it when
Lizzo doesn't have to say it. When you can see
Lizzo on TV knocking it out and got half a
million white kids screaming the lyrics, you should already know
(36:22):
that they accept her for what she is. But for
some reason, we not just Lizzo, we still have to
say it. That part kind of bothers me. Is that
because I saw I saw an interview she did, you
know what I was really it really was hard to
watch hardly well, I listened to it. I didn't see it.
I listened to it, and and I don't like the
(36:43):
fact that she feels like she has to explain anything.
You got that girl got talent. Whoa goodness she got?
I mean her voice in that one track when you
talk about dictates like color greens. I like that line,
of course. But anyway, um, yeah, no, she I mean
her voice, It just has that. I'm not a producer,
but you know what, I'd love to hear lizz O
(37:04):
do just just she'll she'll shut the game down. Give
me an old maybe the staples, I'll take you there,
whoa let her let her do what you do with
that same voy she using that last track she did, done, done,
And you know, to me, I love his sister. But listen,
(37:25):
quit explain it to these fools. Okay, you know, you know,
we know, just beat you. And what do you think
about female black representation, you know in general and music
video in general, and to television and film? Um, you
know I like it. I mean a lot of people say, yeah,
you see girls popping their ass on Yeah, well you
got white girls doing that too. So okay, that being said,
(37:47):
full representation means how many of them are playing lawyers
on TV? I'm starting to see it. How many of
them owned companies? Hello, Oprah, I love you? Um uh
And and to me, um oh god, what's your name? Oh?
To me the goddess, to me when I look at her,
or what I like about her, she's she's gotten older,
(38:09):
but no surgery. She stayed beautiful, she stayed classy. She
didn't go hold on us. And that's Angela Bassett to me,
It's just she is the perfect reference. That is exactly
what I'm talking about and baby, I'm back. She's absolutely gorgeous.
She doesn't have to prove it to you. She's incredibly smart,
she doesn't have to prove it to you. And she's
(38:31):
well along without bragging on it. Um. So she doesn't
have the inferiority and inferiority complex and some of us have.
When you're a minority, you feel like you have to say,
I did it. Look look. She doesn't have to. She
leads by example. Class class personify, and I understand about
Queen Latifa, another one class personify. Janellemulney, Oh my god
(38:51):
is I She's probably my favorite young female artist in
the last fifteen years. I think Janelle Molney is seriously
under estummated. And that song Turntables. If you haven't seen
that video, sisters, sisters, listen to me. Watch the whole video,
(39:11):
especially what she's pulling out of the ocean at the
end of it. Next, do you think you would have
done anything differently with the song or with the video
if you could turn down, if you could go back
to any too, would you have done anything differently? No?
If I could go back now, I wouldn't do anything
differently with that song. Other than the fact. I think
there are times like the ad we were just talking
(39:32):
about that I overleveraged the song and you have to
be careful. I always I always preach that artists should
learned a little bit more about licensing. But licensing isn't
just Hey, go use my song and I'll go back
and shoot somebody tomorrow. You know, your brand kind of
rides with that. I think about. You know, if you
wanted to release one Time It's got No Case as
(39:55):
your lead single. Now, you know, Rick would have maybe
been more you know, in favor of it, given the
current state of affairs, you know, and and and the
reckoning we've experienced in the past several years. It's just interesting,
you know, um and And maybe would have wanted to
bury or just acts a sound like Baby Got Back altogether. Yeah,
(40:20):
you know that. Rick is an interesting guide though, man,
because he I can't speak to anybody else, but I
know I've heard LLL say something similar to that when
I saw him years ago. He just said one one
or two sentences, but basically said when he talks, listen.
Rick is a very interesting guy. He he'll see things
as you in it. As an artist, he see things
(40:40):
sees things that you don't see. You get mad eventually,
initially I shouldn't say eventually, but initially you get angry
because you think you know what most artists actually don't know.
They may know themselves, but they don't know what you
see in them. And that is what Rick forced me
to start looking at stop. I realize, you want to
(41:01):
say this, and you want people to hear you say it,
but if public enemy said it better, they're probably not
gonna respect you saying it. And so he taught me
to kind of understand what people like about Mixed a lot,
and it's not It's not necessarily serious songs, although they
do like some, but they like the cleverness in which
I talk about things I don't. I don't do a
(41:23):
zoom out thing when I talk about social issues. I
zoom in to something I've actually seen and or dealt with,
because I think when you lose credibility on certain things,
you never get it back. What's what? What? What do
you hope the legacy of Baby Got Back is? Um,
(41:46):
you know, it's funny if what I wanted to happen
with Baby Got Back not necessarily legacy. I'll get to
that question also But if what I if, just what
I wanted to happen happen, which it has damn there, Um,
there would be no legs because it would be well,
maybe there would be a legacy, but it would be
back there. Um you'd be looking in the rear view miracle.
(42:08):
Remember when people thought that was ugly, that kind of thing.
So we're there. But if I talk about legacy and that,
it would almost go away if everything I said in
that song came true. And we're getting close to that.
So now it turns into a fun song that people
sing at weddings, you know, I mean, So it's kind
(42:31):
of weird. If the song works, it becomes something it
wasn't intended to be, which is really ironic. And that's
why I always say careful what you wish for when
I talk about Baby Got Back, because what I wish
for is now the norm. Almost Where Were You In
(42:55):
ninety two was a production of I Heart Radio. The
executive producers are No Brown and Jordan run Tag. The
show is researched, written and hosted by me Jason Laffier,
with editing and sound design by Michael Alder June. If
you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
a review. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check
out the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
(43:17):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Where Were You in ninety two, a podcast
in which I your host Jason Lafier, look back at
the major hits, one hit wonders, shocking news stories, and
irresistible scandals that shaped what might be the wildest, most eclectic,
most controversial twelve months of music ever. This week, we
take a quick mid season break from our ride through
(00:26):
for something extra special, a conversation with none other than
rapper and producer Sir mix a Lot, the man behind
the most famous pop song about behind ever made. In
the interview that follows, I chat with one of music's
biggest champions of the ample ass I like to call
him the Bootyguard. We discussed the origins of his hit
(00:47):
number one single Baby Got Back, the onset drama during
the making of his music video, and why he thinks
the song helps spark the body positivity movement and change
representation of black women in the media. Plus extraveals his
least favorite use of the song on popular culture, explains
why Nicki Minaj is Baby Got Back, and offer some
advice to Lizzo. Be sure to tune in Wednesday, January four,
(01:11):
when we returned to I regularly scheduled programming In that episode,
we'll tell the story of Shanide O'Connor and her scandals
performance on Saturday Night Live, during which she ripped up
a photo of the Pope and told audiences to quote
unquote fight the real enemy. Where were you in ninety two?
(01:36):
Mixed mentally, physically, you know, in that in that monumental year, mentally,
I was kind of all over the place, to be
honest with you, Um, I came out of a massive lawsuit. Uh,
while at the same time I got signed by probably
you know, one of the gods of hip hop production.
I mean just you know, I mean just not not
(01:57):
just because of what he's done in the past, but
how we think. Um, he eats, sleeps and breathes and stuff.
He does. It's not about the money. He finishes it
then let somebody else make it about the money. And
I love that. I love that vibe. Um. And I
wanted somebody that m had been in the business for
a little while. I wanted to learn something. I didn't
just wanna you know, people sit in the room and
(02:19):
kiss ask for a while. I didn't want that. I
like the fact that it was somebody that knew more
than I did. So Yeah, it was. It was really hard. Um,
that lawsuit cost me a lot of money. And this
is a nasty mix, right yeah, your initial label, which
can can you tell me a little bit about the situation.
I know they put out your first two records. Uh yeah,
it makes it's funny because I never really had animosity.
(02:41):
That's not what it was about. Really, it really wasn't
um nasty makes. It was an independent, independent label, and
everything is kind of you know, you're trading off. You
gotta give to get and it's a lot of ass kissing.
You know, a lot of a lot of that stuff
was going on. I had to run around and hit
distributors up to make record sales and stuff like that.
And it just reached a point where I thought, you know,
(03:02):
we had a we had a platinum ablement swausum. We
had another gold album in seminar right after that. We
were we were on a roll. But things didn't seem
like they were. Um, it always seemed to be I
always seemed to be a year behind on royalties, ands
and and things like that, and just some basic disagreements.
It was no I hate you or you hate me.
I still love those guys, um, you know, and and
(03:24):
the way that label started. But I knew that before
I did this next record, I needed to try something
a little bit different. And because of those differences, I
thought that was a jump off point for me at least.
And this is when you decided to work with Rick Rubin. Well,
I wish I could say it was just my decision.
It I didn't know where I was gonna go during
(03:46):
the during this lawsuit, I mean it was. It was
literally even if I had won, it wouldn't be a
win because they probably wouldn't really want to keep that
relationship going, right, so I would have been stuck. But
I but there was just some things I thought I
had to do. And I'm sure they have but opposing opinion,
or maybe they agreed, maybe they agreed that we should
have part ways. I don't know. But um, Rick just
(04:06):
happened to call Well, Heidi Hydi Robinson just happened to
call Heidis Rick's publicists. Yeah, Rick publicists. And yet I
had no idea what did that to do with. I thought,
you know, maybe he wanted to license something there. I
didn't know what it was. And uh, long story short,
she got me on the phone with Rick after a
couple of couple of calls and and of course I
(04:27):
was intimidated, like hell, this was like damn, this is
Rick Ruban, Dude, I mean, shut up and listen. And
I remember when I got ready to sign to do
that's kind of another artist that he had signed, Um
said the same thing. He saw me at the shared
in Universal and he said, when Rick speaks, man, just
shut up and listen because he won't repeat himself. So
that's where I got all that from. So there was
(04:47):
there was a moment I think of I think, you know,
not so much tension, but a little bit of back
and forth with you and Rick about releasing Baby Got
Back as the lead single for your third record, Mac Daddy,
which was your first with Death American. You weren't keen
on I'm making that the lead single, Um, and you
(05:08):
actually had your way. You actually did get your way,
and you put out a different first single, One Time's
Got No Case, That's correct, And it was actually I
mean you had your heart was in the right place
and had a good message behind it, yeah, which was
about racial profiling. Yeah, what it was about racial profiling,
and and it was it was stuff that actually happened,
wasn't I don't. I don't. I don't do the storybook
(05:28):
gangster stuff. Right, if it didn't happen, I didn't witness it,
or it didn't have something to do with me, I
don't talk. I hate that. I hate that fakes here, Yeah, yeah,
yeah it was. It was a thing where this is
something that all artists do, and I think it's very
dangerous because it could be career ending. Very seldom is
it career making. Everybody thinks it is, but it's actually not.
(05:49):
I think artists always have this, this this push because
they have this belief. I think artists to make it,
they have to believe that the world's against them, right,
so everybody's the boogeyman, You're the boogeyman. And I got
pro view, all so right, I wanted to do a
track that wasn't Baby Got Back esque first to prove
some stupid ass point to some myth methical, mythical character
that didn't want me to make it in life, right,
(06:12):
and that that person didn't exist, right. But so Rick
kind of basically let me hang myself. He said, okay,
you go ahead, and I'll be here when you get
done with that, and he he paid paid for the
video and did everything he was supposed to do. I
can't knock him as a label. Did what he was
supposed to do. And then I had to, you know,
then tail between my legs and crawled back, going, hey man, yeah,
(06:32):
let's do this thing your way. Let's see what you
can do. So I pretty much did something I usually
don't do, and that I just fell back and I
want to you know, this guy does this right. I
thought I was doing it, but obviously I was wrong,
and I let him kind of do it his way.
I mean, I had my idea for I knew what
maybe got back into me um, and I didn't push
(06:53):
that on Rick because I wanted his interpretation what he
felt when he heard it, because I knew if I
gave him what I felt, it would come off heavy,
heavy handed, and people that really didn't want to hear
that at that time. I let him do it his way, really,
and and then when we got into the video and
all that stuff with with Adam, Um, that's when I
(07:15):
started to assert myself a little bit more and I
wanted to make sure, how do we give Rick what
he wants, which is something wink wink, not not clever
fun on the surface, and then get my message, the
underlying message to come through at the same time but
not be overbearing. So it was a balancing act um
that I knew I couldn't handle because I would go
(07:36):
too far one way. And Rick modulated that stuff back
towards the center. And then I laid on the gravy
with the message with subtle lyric changes and and stuff
in the video. And when you sat down to write this,
I mean, of course it's a very funny song. It
spawned countless covers and parodies and cameos over the past
(07:59):
three decades. And of course, yeah, it's a lot of
fun and and and you know, I've read that the
rickonounced you to increase the tempo of it um to
make it a little less quote unquote gangster in a
little bit more like just like danceable and fun. And
but when you sat down to to to write the song,
it wasn't meant to be a joke. You had a
genuine intention. Yeah, it's something that any African American basically
(08:22):
that has any any you know, reference back to James
Brown and referenced back to Parliament Funkadelic with Motor Booty
Affair and and Chocolate City. Um. They realized that there
was a black pride had to be. If you didn't
ride with it, you die without it. And that's the
way we looked at it. And I, you know, and
I felt like, what was happening If you go back
(08:45):
to that era, there were two types of African American
women that succeeded in Hollywood. I'm and I'm generalizing, so
don't let's not. I don't want somebody to point out
one person in nineteen seventy five or whatever. But basically,
you either had to assimilate to white culture or you
were the the underestimated made that worked for a white
(09:09):
family and they would advise the children on what to
do correct because mom just didn't get it. Or you'd
be the street wise hooker on an episode of Law
and Order. Um, and and that was it. You know,
you always played or you know, or or stereotypical roles prostitutes,
drug addicts, stuff like that. I hated that. I couldn't
stand that. So part of the idea of Baby Got
(09:33):
Back was I was it was gonna be a hard
hitting song. It was not meant to be a single.
Then it became funny, and I said, you know what,
let me, let me pull back on the lyrics and
quit being so dark and make it funny. And and
Pope fun at at Cosmopolitan. At the time, they were
the definers of all things beautiful, I guess, and um
(09:54):
I disagreed with their stants. Um I saw a couple
of movies with an actor I wouldn't name who was
an a a an American that said some things, and
I realized it was in the script, so I can't
knock it, but it was kind of glorifying um Glutya's Minimus,
as I should say. And now you guys, I'll probably
know what movie is. I'm not knocking in because he's
a comedian that light my ass up. But it was
(10:15):
that kind of script that defined him as the norm
and the guy that liked the curves was not. And
I wanted to flip that because any black man knows
is what we've We've been liking that from day one,
and from what I find out now, Hispanic men have too.
So it's it's like a thing, you know that we
um I wanted to talk about, but when we talked
(10:37):
about it, it came off like we were bitter. So
how do I write this song in the way that
George Clinton wrote Chocolate City, in a way that didn't
come off bitter. It was just reality. So I'm only
a Dorsey Grievous was your girlfriend at the time, and
she was struggling too. She had struggled, you know, to
become a model herself. She was doing I believe she
was doing makeup, um gigs and working with a lot
(11:00):
of models. Um who were you know, these tall, gangly,
very thin uh women, And you know, you were just
sort of mystified by the fact that she couldn't get
the jobs that she wanted and and and she was like,
well just look at my look at my ass because
she wasn't she didn't match the standards that you you know,
(11:23):
we're just describing, right. And the thing about it, it
wasn't just her, Um, the main girl and baby got back,
the one on the pedestal. And I hope to get
to that because people need to understand what that video
really was, what it meant, um. But she had to
say problems, right, And it's amazing how many And I'm
we're not talking about women shaped like me. It's not
(11:43):
we're not talking about a girl shape like a tank.
Here's what's ironic. I went to another video director before Adam,
and we talked about what we're talking about right now,
and I said, Okay, how can I make him understand
what I'm saying, because he thought I meant fact, No,
I'm you know what I mean. I mean, I don't know.
That's not what I'm talking about. So then I said, okay,
(12:04):
I think Marilyn Monroe. When I said that to him,
I thought he was gonna go, oh, okay, he goes, well,
when I think Marilyn Monroe, I think prostitute. I'm like,
what the hell is going on? Then I realized this
song ain't just black, this ain't just a black thing.
This is across the board, and I started realizing, Wow,
(12:24):
this is so. I really knew then that the song,
if I broaden the message even more, i'd get more fans.
But I didn't know i'd get up to this level.
I think that had more to do with Rick Uh
and the video, which, in all honesty, a lot of
parts of it I didn't think I would like until later. Yeah,
so you had to cast the video, of course, and
(12:46):
you wanted to make sure you were casting you know,
the right women, and so tell me about the casting process. Well,
the casting process was a little interesting because you had Um,
the choreographer. She one of the best dance I didn't
really care about the best dancers. I wanted to look,
so the ones with the look weren't the best dancers.
(13:09):
The one with the best dancers didn't have the look
I wanted. You know, they did, I mean, they'll done
be wrong. They had the curse. But you know, I
wanted really to hit that knocked that message home. So
we ended up compromising, and she got the dancers that
she wanted, and they were fine too. I don't get
me wrong. It's not like I was going I don't know, no,
not like that, but I got There were three women
(13:30):
I wanted really big, big time. One it started the
video on the pedestal, definitely Um. Two was a girl
you only see her for a blip dancing when I say,
only if she's five three her and then obviously um
WHITSI Whits was like, Hella cool and she's the one
that's doing the kind of the the burlesque kind of
with the fan. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted those three
(13:52):
big times and I got those. So we kind of compromised,
and I totally underestimated though, the scale of this video,
because I I've done videos before, but it was, you know,
poor man videos. I've never madeor label behind me. And
when I saw the cameras alone scared because I'm like,
what is this eyewitness news? I've never seen cameras that big,
and oh yeah it was. It was interesting. It was interesting.
(14:16):
It was a lot of compromising going on because I'm
trying to explain the song and without I can't explain
the song without explaining our culture. So it came off
as preachy. Every time I brought it up, people are like,
oh my god, this again, but they I think, I
think that Adam got it, and I think the choreographer
got it, but I got her point to that she
(14:36):
wanted the best answers, of course. And by the way,
the coreo is the corio in this video is I
had forgotten how tight it is, you know, and it
really it's just just so much going on and and
the high kicks, you know, at that right at the
right moment, with the and the and the whip cracking,
and it's just it's very, very tight. When you were
(14:56):
doing the casting, of course, you had to make sure
you had the right the right boot ease. So you
had to actually, you know, take polaroids of dancers, um asses,
and then Adam had to send them to you, right,
and you had a whole grid, yeah, of asses to
look at. Right. Yeah. I picked up a bunch, but
ended up only getting those ones because obviously the dancing
(15:17):
was so so crucial. But but the basic and to
think about this video that I wanted from the gate,
from the start was I didn't want to be I
didn't want to try to be hypocritical, right I was.
I was into chasing chicks. You know, I was young, right,
I didn't want it to look like all of a sudden,
I'm really a sensible guy who understands that this is
(15:38):
not No. I wanted to be the horror in the
video that didn't get the girl. That was the whole idea.
That was the reason that you know, and we'll get
to that. That was the reason that the main girl
was on a pedestal. That was that was done by design.
I wanted her above us. I didn't want us to
be able to reach her. I never touched her in
the video, never even got close to her. Neither did
the two girls in the beginning. That was all intentional,
(15:59):
and it was to send a little bit of a
message that I see these as queens. I can't even
reach them with my horse ass. That's the way I
kind of dealt with it because I didn't want to
flip everything I had done prior on its race. And actually, no,
I wasn't like that. No I was. I was young
and uh trying to trying to please myself. But it
did work with her, and that's what I wanted. So
(16:21):
when you arrived to the studio, you weren't initially impressed.
You were you know, you said earlier you were a
little into many by other cameras. Also, you had had
this conceit that you were gonna have this giant ass
in the video that you were going to be on
top of or initially you were gonna be coming out
of it, but that was that was discouraged. So you weren't.
(16:42):
You got you see this ass, and you were not
you you you didn't necessarily embrace it immediately that it
was a big, yellow paper mache looking ass right what day.
I didn't know it was gonna be that big. First
of all, that was like a planet that was not
a that was not a that was a planet, man,
that was like Mars, Like they rolled it in and
(17:04):
just I'm looking at this thinking of like, okay, and
I had on all brown and my guys just oh
my god, it yeah, you look like a dancing turd,
like a piece of ship on the giants. So it
was a lot of that. But I'd say, you know what,
I'm gonna go with it. You know, this is this is.
It was a little bigger than I expected. But I
(17:25):
came from the Independent, you know world, and I realized that, Okay,
I'm I just and I don't usually do that. I'm
not a control freak, but at the same time, I
don't do anything that may compromise me later. But I
just didn't think it would. I said, you know what,
I'm gonna trust the process right here, because I had
to right to say no at any time. And I
went ahead and went went through with it. Man, and
(17:45):
once it was editing and stuff. A matter of fact,
once they even started there, I noticed that they kept
me in the process. They kept asking what do you
think it is? What do you think of that? Which
I really really I respect the fact that they did that,
because that video could have gone wrong. In a lot
of ways. There was costume drama as well. You know,
I remember some kind of goofy shorts, real super tight
tagger kind of shorts and necklaces, and it was just
(18:08):
really nasty, right, And I'm like, this is the opposite
of what I want. You know, I don't want her
to be hood rat. I don't want her to be home.
I wanted her to be just fine, that's it. And
I want her to be seen as the norm and
let these other chicks come off as you know, haters,
and that that was what I wanted. So it wasn't
(18:29):
a big deal. I heard some rumor that I should
pulled a gun, pull a gun on a makeup artist.
Did this happen or not? Was there a gun or not? No,
because I know at the beginning, Rick was really kind
of pushing the guns, you know, for your image. No,
I I've always been at the guns I got. I
got a bunch of upstairs right now. But you ain't
man a black man traveling across state lines in the
(18:53):
nineties during the Gang era to make sure he could
defend himself against a makeup artist. That's it don't even
make sense. Do she she think you were was did
she think you were doing it? Were you actually pulling
something else out? Were you just kidding around there? What? What? This?
This shocked me when I saw this, that there was
maybe a gun pulled on a po costume designer. Yeah,
(19:16):
who was trying to persuade you not to look like
a piece of ship, a literal piece of ship in
your video? No? No, that that's that's a lie right
there too. Where the problem with the wardrobe came in
wasn't what I had. It was what Sharne, who was
not Almen, her name is Alm, what she had on.
She didn't like it, and neither did I. Needed My
guys were like, dude, you do this, it's gonna look
(19:36):
like a super flat movie. And a lot of people
did not like it, and I didn't like it. So
I was ready to just kill the whole video. Because
she didn't like it either. She said, you know, I
walked over to it. She goes, they got me looking
like a hoe, like a straight prostitute. But I was
talking about it. Maybe he got back with a woman
who was better than me. I didn't want her to
(19:57):
be my prey. That being said, I'm not mad at
the costume designer because if you look at videos in
that era, that's what they were, including some of mine. Honestly,
I mean that's what they were. They were girls, you know,
popping that ass, and that was that was that was
the dance that back then, and I still love that.
But I wanted to take this up a notch and
(20:18):
let women know, you know what, Yeah, we all like
something sexy and this and that, but at the same time,
you guys are queens, and they've always been the queens
of the black community, the women. If it wasn't for
the women, Yeah, with the asking any black person, they'll
tell you. So you had to make a last minute
trip to the mall, right and come up with another
outfit for her. Yeah, yeah, it was just a little
yellow something, little yellow dress or whatever, but that was
(20:39):
not what she had. Only got there and and and
I went to the mall got it. Everything was straight,
Like I said, there was no I didn't. I did
get piste, but I did not blic over some shorts. Uh.
I think the power and just saying no is it
is a little bit better you do this video. You
(21:10):
got a hit on your hands, starts to build some buzz.
You start to you know, to to tour for MC
daddy U and uh, and then you discover at some
point someone informs you that the video has been banned
from MTV on camera. Yeah, and this is the first
(21:31):
that this was the first that you had heard. Yeah, well,
we were on this tour. We started this promotion tour.
Keep in mind song hadn't it wasn't even out yet,
because when we started this tour and like Mark, song
came out in May. Al right, so song comes out
I think May seventh or something like that, and uh,
you know, we're going from city to city, We're on
(21:53):
a bus and it's this It's we're not I'm not
making any money. All my money is going salary because
I had a gigantic crew because obviously one of the
help help people to get used to that image so
they can see it in the video because we're the
same people. So we get on tour, go through Corpus Christie, Texas,
and that was the first time we had helicopters over
(22:14):
the show. I'm like, is somebody in trouble because you
know we started the show. I'm serious, I got this
on video first show, maybe a hundred people. We went
to an autograph signing that this record store or whatever.
It's like eight people there. There was nothing happening, right.
We get down to Texas and its pack and then
(22:35):
we go forward and where we hit a place, um,
Panama City, Panama City, Florida. Um. I'm walking in. I'm
videotaping because I'm shocked about next door as a hotel
next door to the club. The club is sitting on
the water and the dance floor was the swimming poop.
They would cover it at night, you know. But I
(22:55):
look over here at this this uh, this hotel and
it's like every single balcony was packed, and I'm wondering,
what are they. Maybe they're looking at the water and
what are they. I didn't know it was me. I
had no idea walking in and you hear the club
owner go and this week it was just announced the
man with the camera has the number one record in
the world, in this country or whatever, and I'm like,
(23:18):
he goes, baby got back and I started laughing, and
you hear me said, yeah, right, you know, we're nobody
believed it, right. I had an assistant at that time.
Her name was Christy. I said, Christie, we didn't go
number one, like not that I know of Keep in mind,
we didn't have these back then, right, so there was
no there was no yeah, and we didn't even have
(23:39):
the internet exactly. Yeah, cell phones like a dollar fifty
a minutes, you know, and who thought you know? And
he said it, and then the crowd it was packed.
They knew every word. They were passionate, like did we
really go number one? And I still didn't know. Um,
we didn't believe this guy. We left and when we
got to the next city, then I saw a picture
of the charts and I'm like, oh, hell to the know, Yeah,
(24:04):
I went number one Billboard charts man. And then the
band well it went. Yeah, it rode for a little while.
It got to five weeks, and we were head at home,
and you know, we didn't we knew. The song was
blowing up on MTV like crazy. While it was number one,
(24:25):
it got well they say it got I guess demoted
or moved to another time slot. That's not the way
I remember it. I remember it being banned initially, and
then I started to see it at nighttime after nine o'clock,
which in essence killed the song, you know, on on
MTV didn't kill so I thought at that time my
career was over. I thought, wow, he just took he
(24:48):
just snatched the hit right from my hands and killed it.
And then I started to think a little differently, and
I started to think, you know, maybe not, maybe not.
And then Heidi Robinson said something to them, and I
only think she remembers it. But I talked to Heidi
the other day and I told her that. She said that.
She's like, yeah, you know, so she may not remember
because it was just a Heidi call. And she goes
(25:11):
because she used the publicist on this project. And she said,
I said, you know, you hear we got banned, and
she said, yes, I hear we got banned. And I'm like, okay,
what does this mean. I remember six this exhalet Well mix.
You're now Elvis Presley and you shook your leg one
too many times on the Ed Sullivan Show. I will never, ever,
(25:33):
ever in my life forget that. Because I realized, oh ship,
I'm the forbidden fruit and that never dies, you know.
And I realized, maybe not, you know, maybe this thing,
even though yeah, it came down to charts because it
was all but forced down, but all of a sudden women,
(25:54):
which was good, she started to understand so I pulled.
I got to Nebraska. I remember a bunch of women
were boycotting uh me coming to town because they thought
it was I was a sexist pig, and I debated them.
I didn't debate them. I just did a live thing
on the phone with the radio station, kind of moderating
and keeping things going, and I explained to them, yeah,
(26:15):
you can call me sexist, because I probably have been.
I didn't because you you're gonna lose credibility if you
say you never. Yeah, he's chase women like any other
young cat. However, the woman I'm talking about in this
song is the unobtainable. Listen to the whole song. I
never get her. I want to, but I never get her.
I didn't say she was mine. I didn't do any
of that kind of stuff. And I said, don't call
(26:36):
her no bitch. I say all of that. So once
I explained what I meant what I meant, the girls
didn't love me, but they didn't boycott the show. And
I think that was a turning point where women started
to talk and go, wait a minute, this ain't this,
ain't this ain't ass song, and then black women started
to walk up and say thank you. That part probably
(26:56):
hit me more than anything else on the on a
grand scale, just from city to city to city. And
I'm talking about little kids, and I'm talking about twenty
year old girls, talking about thirty year old women saying
thank you about time. My mom was a very strong
woman and a lot of hers and Baby Got Back.
Not that I'm talking about my mom's black, because I'm not,
(27:16):
but a lot of what And she even liked the song,
which tells me something because my mom would tell me
straight up. My mom never used the N word one
time in the house. You know, she didn't believe in it.
She hated it, um. But she also uh didn't like
Uncle Tom's. She didn't like people that would get in
front of white people and put on, for lack of
(27:38):
a better way of saying that, black face, not literally
but figuratively and kind of stepping step and fetch you
and tip tap dance and all. She hated that. And
she don't ever do that, honey, no matter how much
money you make, don't ever compromise who you are, because
once you do, you can't take that back, can't get
it back. And she's right. What did she say about
Baby Got Back? Specifically, Initially she was like, I don't know, baby.
(28:02):
She listened to the song, she said, I don't know
because she didn't really catch the message. Then she saw
the video and she looked at it and you could
see her kind of doing math, going okay, she's good.
She's she reads and she studies all this kind of
like she likes plots and uh as. She kept watching
it and kept watching it and kept watching and she's like,
(28:24):
that's a good song. And she's never said that to me, right,
my mom was she let my mom group was bb king,
you know. She she wanted that kind of stuff. So
she actually understood what that song was about. And that
felt good at my sister who had God rest her soul. Boys,
she she knew it right out of the gate. She
knew it right, she said, thank you boy. She's ad
(28:45):
my baby brother spitting it so so not everyone was
so supportive back home now in Seattle. So Seattle was
you were trying to carve out a path for you know,
Seattle hip hop. You know, most people, especially at point
in history. You know, by by the end of the year,
you had you know, East coast versus West coast. You
(29:06):
had dre coming in Snoop Dogg. You know, there wasn't
a whole lot coming out of Seattle. You were really
you were really and then you know, you were really big.
You were one of the first tackable planets came. And
then of course years later we had you know, Mcamore
and and De Satisfaction and UM and Saba's Palaces. So
you were really kind of putting Seattle hip hop on
(29:30):
the map. And you know, by the way to listeners,
you know, Mix was doing this in the late eighties
with his first two records as well. UM, but not
everyone was, you know, super super thrilled back home. I well,
what do you think? What do you think Do you
think it was just jealousy? Do you think it was
Did you think that when they heard Baby Got Back
(29:50):
they thought, is this really hip hop? Is this what
hip hop is becoming? No? I think what it was
is that for some reason, Um, I was the poster
child for Seattle hip hop. I shouldn't have been. So
I think that that was the problem is that I wasn't.
I never considered myself Seattle hip hop. I always wanted
(30:11):
to be an outsider on the hip hop side that
could give it to you. If you wanted them that heat,
and a lot of people when they hear me, do
you know other songs where I'm spitting fire, like Daddy's
Home and stuff like that, They're like, WHOA, I didn't
really know you could come like that. And I only
do that now. I didn't do it then, so it
(30:32):
kind of baby got back plus and what I mean
plus is plus years. Some people saw that at Seattle
hip Hop. They didn't even look back at Swass and
seminar Um and yeah, so I'm not mad about that.
I never was mad about that. I was a little
disappointed that that the business, the record business didn't come
to Seattle and go what else is out here? They didn't.
(30:53):
They didn't sit they didn't sit around because there were
other groups out there. But at that time, and this
is another myth that I want to dispel, people go,
well you didn't, you didn't put so and so on.
Who did? Then? I don't remember too many cats that
had the power to walk into a major and go
(31:14):
sign this guy. You know, I couldn't even do it.
And I mean I kind of helped a little bit
with Nasty Mix because I like Criminal Nation a lot.
I went out and saw im I like, man, I
hope they get signed Criminal Nation because they're good, and
they did. But I couldn't just walk into Rick's office.
So I'm a new artist, right. He saved me from
a downspiral. Now I'm gonna walk in and go. I
(31:36):
got these five artists signed. Yeah, just signed him because
I said so. No, that didn't fly. That's a that's
a myth from back in the day. What nobody put
nobody on, at least not in my sunario. That's always
been a kind of a thing that's frustrated me. Not
that I was hated. That's normal in hip hop. You know.
The guy that gets the pop success is gonna get this.
What did you really get? Did you? Did you really
(31:57):
get death threats after this the success of any out back? No,
well I got, you know, yeah, but not because the
baby got back. The death threats came from people that
just had beef. But I think I think I think
some of them thought, you know, that I got soft
because of they didn't. You know, I didn't get a
lot of that beforehand, you know, but afterwards. The only
(32:21):
thing I would say back to a cat it would
give me a death threat is you got my address
and the death threats on the record, and I think
they knew what that meant. It's like if you think
I'm a roll up like a bit and be like,
oh please, don't come in my house and take me out. No, no, no, no, Now,
I'm not gonna be out there on the street. I'm
not no gangster. I don't do that. But it was
just small time, you know, stuff people do when their kids.
(32:42):
That's all that was. I didn't really take none of
that serious, honestly, As I said earlier. There have been
countless covers. Yeah, it's been on Glee of course. Nicki
Minaj just a few years ago sampled it for Anaconda.
That was beautiful, exposed it to a whole new audience. Um,
the whole new generation. Um. Do you have a favorite
(33:07):
usage of that song and popular culture or do you
have a favorite cover or a favorite parody? Wow, you
know they got back what I remember when Nicky, when
Nikki put out in the Condom. First of all, I
loved it. I love the fact that you know, a
lot of people may not know Ice teas. I want
to tell me she was looking for me, right, Nicky,
(33:28):
something about doing blah blah blah. So I got a
number somehow and got in touch with her and we
only talked about five minutes. What I liked about it
is that she was in charge. Let me said that again.
She was in charge. She wanted she knew the production,
she wanted, she wanted to DJ, she wanted to use
the scratch, and she wanted me to do this. She
(33:48):
wanted me to do that. And I realized she is
Baby got Back. I didn't realize it until when that
video came out. Everybody's like, well, she's not talking about
the sisters not get in respect, like because she's showing
that it's changing. She is the example of what I
was talking about in Baby and it's well, I were like,
(34:09):
what I what the underlying message message was I should say?
And um, yeah it was. That was That was cool.
There's been some uses that I've been ashamed of. I
ain't'na get into that, but well, you gotta have me one.
You gotta give me one that you're ashamed of. Oh man, okay,
anybody listening. Nobody listening. Uh, there's what I did for
(34:33):
Burger King that the guy that directed a brother, he
did the you know the WHATSI back in the day
that bud Wise. Okay, he did those ads and it's
me uh lufer rig No, No, what's to do that?
What's the dude something Mstrada? What's his name? The guy
(34:53):
used to play the cop man. All those people are
in it, man the cheesiest Oh my god, I was horrible.
It was like I I should have never done that.
They paid me a lot of money. I think it
was Burger King. Was it Burger King? I think it
was Burger King. I don't want to dis burger King
if they didn't do it, but I didn't like that
at all. Hopefully they sold something from it. But yeah,
(35:16):
that's what I learned quickly. How your license Baby Got
Back from this point forward needs to be taken more
seriously because you can through in the legacy of a song.
What's really interesting going back and watching this and and
reading you know, what you said about it in previous
interviews like it. You know, Baby Got Back was a
step forward not only in you know, the body positivity movement,
(35:40):
but also in black representation, black female representation. What do
you think of where we are now with the body
positivity movement? What do you think of someone like Lizza? Yeah,
you know, here's the thing this is um and I'm
proud of Lizzo. Here's the thing thing that why you know,
(36:01):
it's still not right yet Lizzo has to say it.
You know, you see what I mean when it when
Lizzo doesn't have to say it. When you can see
Lizzo on TV knocking it out and got half a
million white kids screaming the lyrics, you should already know
(36:22):
that they accept her for what she is. But for
some reason, we not just Lizzo, we still have to
say it. That part kind of bothers me. Is that
because I saw I saw an interview she did, you
know what I was really it really was hard to
watch hardly well, I listened to it. I didn't see it.
I listened to it, and and I don't like the
(36:43):
fact that she feels like she has to explain anything.
You got that girl got talent. Whoa goodness she got?
I mean her voice in that one track when you
talk about dictates like color greens. I like that line,
of course. But anyway, um, yeah, no, she I mean
her voice, It just has that. I'm not a producer,
but you know what, I'd love to hear lizz O
(37:04):
do just just she'll she'll shut the game down. Give
me an old maybe the staples, I'll take you there,
whoa let her let her do what you do with
that same voy she using that last track she did, done, done,
And you know, to me, I love his sister. But listen,
(37:25):
quit explain it to these fools. Okay, you know, you know,
we know, just beat you. And what do you think
about female black representation, you know in general and music
video in general, and to television and film? Um, you
know I like it. I mean a lot of people say, yeah,
you see girls popping their ass on Yeah, well you
got white girls doing that too. So okay, that being said,
(37:47):
full representation means how many of them are playing lawyers
on TV? I'm starting to see it. How many of
them owned companies? Hello, Oprah, I love you? Um uh
And and to me, um oh god, what's your name? Oh?
To me the goddess, to me when I look at her,
or what I like about her, she's she's gotten older,
(38:09):
but no surgery. She stayed beautiful, she stayed classy. She
didn't go hold on us. And that's Angela Bassett to me,
It's just she is the perfect reference. That is exactly
what I'm talking about and baby, I'm back. She's absolutely gorgeous.
She doesn't have to prove it to you. She's incredibly smart,
she doesn't have to prove it to you. And she's
(38:31):
well along without bragging on it. Um. So she doesn't
have the inferiority and inferiority complex and some of us have.
When you're a minority, you feel like you have to say,
I did it. Look look. She doesn't have to. She
leads by example. Class class personify, and I understand about
Queen Latifa, another one class personify. Janellemulney, Oh my god
(38:51):
is I She's probably my favorite young female artist in
the last fifteen years. I think Janelle Molney is seriously
under estummated. And that song Turntables. If you haven't seen
that video, sisters, sisters, listen to me. Watch the whole video,
(39:11):
especially what she's pulling out of the ocean at the
end of it. Next, do you think you would have
done anything differently with the song or with the video
if you could turn down, if you could go back
to any too, would you have done anything differently? No?
If I could go back now, I wouldn't do anything
differently with that song. Other than the fact. I think
there are times like the ad we were just talking
(39:32):
about that I overleveraged the song and you have to
be careful. I always I always preach that artists should
learned a little bit more about licensing. But licensing isn't
just Hey, go use my song and I'll go back
and shoot somebody tomorrow. You know, your brand kind of
rides with that. I think about. You know, if you
wanted to release one Time It's got No Case as
(39:55):
your lead single. Now, you know, Rick would have maybe
been more you know, in favor of it, given the
current state of affairs, you know, and and and the
reckoning we've experienced in the past several years. It's just interesting,
you know, um and And maybe would have wanted to
bury or just acts a sound like Baby Got Back altogether. Yeah,
(40:20):
you know that. Rick is an interesting guide though, man,
because he I can't speak to anybody else, but I
know I've heard LLL say something similar to that when
I saw him years ago. He just said one one
or two sentences, but basically said when he talks, listen.
Rick is a very interesting guy. He he'll see things
as you in it. As an artist, he see things
(40:40):
sees things that you don't see. You get mad eventually,
initially I shouldn't say eventually, but initially you get angry
because you think you know what most artists actually don't know.
They may know themselves, but they don't know what you
see in them. And that is what Rick forced me
to start looking at stop. I realize, you want to
(41:01):
say this, and you want people to hear you say it,
but if public enemy said it better, they're probably not
gonna respect you saying it. And so he taught me
to kind of understand what people like about Mixed a lot,
and it's not It's not necessarily serious songs, although they
do like some, but they like the cleverness in which
I talk about things I don't. I don't do a
(41:23):
zoom out thing when I talk about social issues. I
zoom in to something I've actually seen and or dealt with,
because I think when you lose credibility on certain things,
you never get it back. What's what? What? What do
you hope the legacy of Baby Got Back is? Um,
(41:46):
you know, it's funny if what I wanted to happen
with Baby Got Back not necessarily legacy. I'll get to
that question also But if what I if, just what
I wanted to happen happen, which it has damn there, Um,
there would be no legs because it would be well,
maybe there would be a legacy, but it would be
back there. Um you'd be looking in the rear view miracle.
(42:08):
Remember when people thought that was ugly, that kind of thing.
So we're there. But if I talk about legacy and that,
it would almost go away if everything I said in
that song came true. And we're getting close to that.
So now it turns into a fun song that people
sing at weddings, you know, I mean, So it's kind
(42:31):
of weird. If the song works, it becomes something it
wasn't intended to be, which is really ironic. And that's
why I always say careful what you wish for when
I talk about Baby Got Back, because what I wish
for is now the norm. Almost Where Were You In
(42:55):
ninety two was a production of I Heart Radio. The
executive producers are No Brown and Jordan run Tag. The
show is researched, written and hosted by me Jason Laffier,
with editing and sound design by Michael Alder June. If
you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us
a review. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check
out the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
(43:17):
you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Jason Lamphier
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