SALT-N-PEPA REVIEW THEIR DISCOGRAPHY

[JumpinJack AJ]

Salt-N-Pepa go thru' their discography...

http://vibe.com/photo-galleries/full-clip-salt-n-pepa-runs-down-their-entire-catalogue

When it comes to Salt-N-Pepa, the stats don’t lie: First female hip-hop act to score a top 20 Billboard pop single (“Push It”); to enjoy platinum sales (Hot, Cool & Vicious); to rack up a multi-platinum album (Very Necessary); to win a Grammy (1995’s Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "None of Your Business"); to sell over 15 million records. But album sales and awards don’t begin to scratch the surface of just how influential the Queens, New York trio of Cheryl “Salt” Wray, Sandra “Pepa” Denton and Deidra "DJ Spinderella” Roper have been within the male-dominated genre of hip-hop and beyond.

Quite simply, Salt-N-Pepa is indispensable. They were girl-power before the Spice Girls; super heroes to legions of aspiring female MC’s who dreamed of rocking the mic alongside their male peers from Queen Latihah to Nicki Minaj. Indeed, Salt-N-Pepa beat the boys at their own game. Many observers point out that their recent BET "I Am Hip Hop" Icon Award from this past October’s Hip-Hop Honors was long overdue. We agree. Here is the groundbreaking story of Salt-N-Pepa. —Keith Murphy



"The Showstoppers" (1986)--Super Nature

Salt: “Our first record The ‘Showstoppers’ was recorded back in 1986 and was the answer record to Doug E. Fresh’s and Slick Rick’s ‘The Show.’ We were originally called Super Nature. But before we go into that it’s important to understand how Salt and I first met.”

Pepa: “We met each other in high school. Even back then, I was very outspoken and boisterous. I remember playing spades in the lunchroom and guess what? We are playing spades right now [laughs]. But I used to see Salt in the lunchroom and she would be so quiet. I used to watch her and ask myself, ‘Why isn’t she joining the party?’ She would just be in her little corner. But I later found out that she was paying attention to me like, ‘Who is she?’ We just connected and started talking.”

Salt: "Opposites really do attract. It was that sense of humor that we both had. Laughter was contagious when we were together. We always made each other laugh. There was a point where we were working at Sears Roebuck and we were telephone solicitors. Martin Lawrence worked there. So did Hurby (Salt N Pepa’s longtime producer Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor) and Kid n’ Play. And the thing that really made me fall in love with Pep was when our computers were down at one point and we were all in the break room, Pep got in front of everybody and told this story about how she saw this bum humping a pole [laughs]. She actually got up on the wall and demonstrated how the man was humping! And I was like, ‘I love this girl [laughs].’ So yes, our initial attraction was laughter. It was later we found out that we were both huge hip-hop fans. The catalyst for [‘The Showstopper’] was Roxanne Shante’s answer to UTFO’s ‘Roxanne, Roxanne.’ She really inspired us to do that song. Back then, that’s how you got your foot in the door in hip-hop. And it was all about battling and who was the best. That was the best way for us as female rappers to get noticed, which was crazy for us to do because Doug and Slick Rick were the biggest thing ever and ‘The Show’ was the biggest song ever. It was very ballsy for two women that nobody knew to do something like that [laughs]. Who do these girls battling Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh think they are?!!! But that was what started us out because after that people recognized us.”

Pepa: “I say hats off to Hurby. He always had a dream, a vision. But he knew at the end of the day it was Salt and I who would make that dream come true. And he was right because the legacy of Salt-N-Pepa is amazing. Hurby understood issues when it came to females. He wrote a lot and he just had a good ear.”

Salt: “Hurby was a believer. He believed that all things were possible and his energy was very contagious.”

Pepa: “So having him in charge in the beginning and molding us, and shaping us and helping us to believe is what got us really going early on.”


Hot, Cool & Vicious (1986)

Salt: “When we were recording our first album [Hot, Cool & Vicious], we had issues with the first Spinderella (Latoya Hanson). It really didn’t seem like she believed in what we were doing. She didn’t do that many shows. She never gelled into the group personality wise, which was very important. So when Hurby brought the new Spinderalla (Deidra "Dee Dee" Roper) to us she was somebody that he thought would be great for the group. And from my standpoint, she was a little younger than me so there was a mothering kind of thing with her. She wasn’t really there yet, but she had the energy and the belief in the group that the original Spinderella didn’t have. She just clicked with us.”

Pepa: “I remember when ‘Push It’ first came out. Back then we were still making records on vinyl and there was an A-side and a B-side. ‘Tramp’ was on the A-side and ‘Push It’ was on the B-side, but there was a DJ who was like, ‘No, this ‘Push It’ song is hot!’ He really backed that song and it took on a life of its own. It was amazing. We started doing shows overseas. To this day we say ‘Push It’ is possessed and it won’t die [laughs].”

Salt: “But the funny thing about ‘Push It’ is we really didn’t care for the record at all. Coming out of hip-hop, we were always a poppy kind of act. And so a lot of rappers used to question our credibility like, ‘Oh, they crossed over; they are really popular…so mainstream.’ We weren’t as hard as the rest of the rappers. Hurby did the production on ‘Push It’ so when I first heard it I was like, ‘Ah shoot…we are really going to hear it now. This song is very poppy.’ I was really iffy about it. But it turned out to be our claim to fame. That whole period was great. In the beginning, Hurby producing and writing our music was not a big issue. Because it was more of a prove-yourself kind of thing. Hurby was open if we brought something to the table. But we did run into some turbulence later in our careers when it came time for us to become more independent.”


"Let The Rhythm Run"--Colors soundtrack (1988)

Salt: “We had points in our careers where we felt like we had to prove ourselves to the streets because of all the flack that we got for being poppy. We had those fleeting moments when we said, ‘We are going to go hard on them.’ And ‘Let The Rhythm Run’ was probably one of those songs.”

Pepa: “But the funny thing is today everybody wants to go pop [laughs].”


A Salt with a Deadly Pepa (1988)

Pepa: “Hurby and his whole crew were actually the originators of the hip-hop crew. I’ve heard Jermaine Dupri say it; I’ve heard Puffy say it: Hurby, Salt-N-Pepa, Kid & Play, Kwame, and Dana Dane was that model for a producer and a stable of artists to come together and create a crew. We didn’t know we were making that model at that time. But that is the [template] now to this day from G-Unit to Young Money. Once again I have to say hats off to Hurby. We already did the go-go thing with ‘My Mic Sounds Nice.’ So he came up with the idea to get EU, who did ‘Da Butt,’ to collaborate with us on ‘Shake Your Thang.’ Once again, we were never afraid to try new things. New York wasn’t playing go-go like that. That was the thing with us…we were never afraid to take a chance. We always went for it.”

Salt: “But not everyone liked us taking chances. When we did that cover of ‘Twist & Shout’ we had fun doing that video because it was black and white and reminiscent of that [early ‘60s era.] But what the people who were complaining about how pop that song don’t realize is there is more to the world than America. ‘Twist & Shout’ is a huge record in Europe and all over the world. Sometimes artists get caught up in just making music for America, but that song is huge. We just did a tour in Australia and we played ‘Twist & Shout’ and they went crazy [laughs].”

Black's Magic (1990)

Salt: “As you grow up as an artist you begin to sober up. You start following your heart more. And you become more aware of issues in the world. It’s just a natural progression as a human being and as an artist. We wanted to encourage, inspire and bring awareness to certain issues. And that’s what Black’s Magic represented. At that time I was still in a relationship with Hurby and Hurby was somewhat of a Svengali for us. He was the dude who kind of dictated to us in the beginning because initially it was his vision. But eventually, after a while, you want to express for yourself more and more. And you run up against resistance as you grow up, so if that person does not fully understand you then you have to go out and try to find other people that can help you express your vision and bring it on record. So I started meeting with other artists and producers [like the Invincibles].”

Pepa: “I’m about my business. So after a while you start say, ‘Oh, I can bring this to the table.’ Or ‘this other producer can bring this to the table.’ The whole situation with Hurby was kind of rough. There were people telling us you need to write your own songs. You need to produce your own music. So then when we started going back to the table you see that movie all the time. ‘Hey, I’m supposed to be making this much money. I should be doing this and that.’ But we went through what we went through and we are still here today.”

Salt: “One song we are really proud of is ‘Let’s Talk About Sex.’ Peter Jennings got in touch with us and came to the table because his daughter was listening to ‘Let’s Talk About Sex.’ And he was like, ‘Hey, what is this song?’ And then he listened to it and got in touch with us because he wanted to change it to ‘Let’s Talk About AIDS.’ To this day we are advocates for AIDS prevention and awareness. We do a lot of charities and contests to get people to talk about AIDS and HIV. It was a good feeling to know that someone as respected as Peter Jennings would ask us to be apart of that campaign. That was amazing.”


Very Necessary (1993)

Salt: With the Very Necessary album we wanted to have even more independence. There were things we wanted to do and express as women. We fully separated ourselves from Hurby. Like I said, there was a personal relationship going on and I broke up with him for obvious reasons which you can see in a film like Dreamgirls [laughs]. The first single was ‘Shoop,’ which Pepa and I did together. In the past, Hurby brought so much to the table, but we wanted ‘Shoop’ to be the first single. But the label was like, ‘Oh no…we have to do a Hurby cut.’ The record company and Hurby were fighting us on it. They finally gave in which was great because ‘Shoop’ pushed Very Necessary over the top. Very Necessary sold millions of copies and became our biggest record. As a woman in the music industry, it’s hard to prove yourself. You always have to do extra. This is when we started really writing and producing our songs. We were going hard in the paint.”

Pepa: “When we made ‘Whatta Man’ with En Vougue, oh my God, that was amazing! We all sat around thinking, ‘Who can we get to sing this hook?’ And we all said En Vogue. We weren’t even sure that they would do it. But it was nothing to it but making a call. The girls were so excited about the idea. They loved the song and they loved us. It’s one of our biggest hits to this day.”

Salt: “For me personally, I always felt like Salt-N-Pepa was going to be huge. So I was never surprised when Very Necessary sold millions. I don’t mean that to sound arrogant, but that’s just a spiritual thing. But the pinnacle moment for me was winning a Grammy. We had been nominated a couple of times, but hadn’t won. I wasn’t really expecting for us to be recognized as pioneers in hip-hop especially us being females. At that point hip-hop music at the Grammy’s was not that significant. So it was an incredible surprise when we won. That’s when I realized that we had come to the point that we were actually being recognized and respected in this genre of music.”


Brand New (1997)

Salt: “Brand New was a mess. There were a lot of things that contributed to that album not doing as well as it could. It was us trying something differently creatively. Besides that, there was a changing of the guards at the record company, which happens a lot. There was no promotion on it. We were always used to this big set-up and everything being in its proper place. And we got caught up in the record company changing representatives. The push that was usually behind us wasn’t there anymore. So we got lost in a lot of internal drama. There were a lot of promises that were being made that weren’t kept. There was a particular person who was involved that wasn’t involved after the record companies switched.”

Pepa: “We were caught between a transitional deal between Red Ant and Universal. But we didn’t realize that at the time.”

Salt: “But besides that, this was a new sound for Salt-N-Pepa. So people may not have been ready for that. We don’t really know. All I know is that there was no promotion behind Brand New. I became dissatisfied with the music industry. I look at a lot of artists like Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan who went through the whole fall of losing it in front of the world and going to jail and being on drugs. When you are in this business you become not a person, but a machine. You are just there to make money for a record company and to please people. And I had been doing that since I was 18-years-old. It was a great successful ride to the top, but at the same time I didn’t really know who I was or what I wanted from this legacy that we created. So the pressure began to take its toll on me. The whole thing of trying to beautiful; trying to be thin; trying to be all these things to people. So I got to a point where I started to breakdown. I didn’t feel good about what I was doing and I didn’t feel good about myself. I had issues from the past with my dad. I felt like I needed to take a moment and deal with myself. Through going to church and my faith, prayer and reading my Bible, I was able to come to a place where I felt good about myself. Where I can be in this business, but not be of this business and not let it consume me. Sometimes celebrities don’t take a moment to just be still and figure out who they are apart from what everyone expects them to be. I had to take that time away from Salt-N-Pepa for myself. I had another kid…I established my home life and family life. I was able to get solid.”

Pepa: “What Salt-N-Pepa has achieved is amazing when you think about it. We have a tour coming up in 2011 called ‘Salt-N-Pepa Presents The Legends of Hip-Hop. Slick Rick, Whodini, Rob Base, Naughty By Nature…they will all be there. So yeah, my baby’s daddy [Treach from Naughty By Nature] will be there as well [laughs]. We’ve been doing this thing for so long. We travel overseas. We love our fans in the States, but there are other people across the globe that also loves us. I’m talking about filling up 15,000 seat arenas. The fans want to hear new music. So we are back in the studio and working on new songs. We have a couple of joints on iTunes. ‘Big Girls’ is one of those songs, which we are very proud of. We want our fans to vote on our new songs on SaltnPepa.net. We may even do another reality show. But they have become too wild for me. I’m probably not nasty enough for VH1 [laughs]. But the fact that Salt-N-Pepa is still going strong is very important. For us to still be relevant in this male dominated field of hip-hop is huge.”

[bigted]

Salt-N-Pepa's like the female version of Run-Dmc, that group opened up the door for women to have impact in hip hop, "Very Necessary" is my favorite album from them but they've stayed consistent, looking forward to hearing some of their music coming out

[JumpinJack AJ]

I haven't even had time to read this article yet...lol. I just posted it here so I wouldn't have to look for it later...PLUS i figured some of u were have interest in it 2.

[Turntable]

They did a show here recently but I missed it. It is time for them to release some new stuff isn't it.

[JumpinJack AJ]

They released 2 new songs about a month ago. But u could only get them on iTunes so I haven't heard them yet. They've been so active the last 2 or 3 years that you would think an album is forming. They are still touring with a line up of legends.