About Salt-N-Pepa
Salt N Pepa, back in the beginning, circa 1986
I’m not gonna steal some clinically formal Salt N Pepa history from Wiki or Rolling Stone or MTV or some such place. That is morally wrong and it violates copyright laws, so I’ma write my own. I think what is great about fan sites is that unlike the very technical sounding information about groups published by record labels, fan sites can be infused with the personality of that particular adoring fan (i.e. Janet and Me!), and that makes them more interesting to read, so here it is. This is to my knowledge all accurate information. However, I don’t know everything so if I have any of my facts wrong here, please email and let me know, but I think it’s all right.
Salt N Pepa, otherwise known as Cheryl “Salt” James Wray and Sandy “Pepa” Denton, along with DJ/rapper Spinderella, came from rather humble beginnings. Cheryl and Sandy met at Queensboro Community College and worked together at a Sears call center. It is Hurby Azor who discovered the musical potential in the girls.
In 1985, Azor was a media arts student and was given the task of creating a record for a music production class. He enlisted the help of Cheryl and Sandy for vocals, and Salt N Pepa was born. That’s right, the first and greatest all-girl rap group started out as a school project. However, they weren’t Salt N Pepa just yet. This first song, called The Showstopper, is a response to Doug E. Fresh’s song The Show. After all, this was back when if rap artists had beef with each other, they would take it out by releasing a harsh, scathing record, before they resorted to “capping asses,” as they so often do now. For this first single, the girls were called Supernature. I’ve never heard a really good explanation of where the name Salt N Pepa comes from. They do refer to themselves as Salt N Pepa in The Showstopper, but I don’t know for sure why they called themselves that at all. I’ve heard it suggested that the name refers to their skin tones (Pepa being a bit darker than Salt) but I don’t really buy that. I’ve also heard it is because Pepa is the wilder one, thus her name is Pepa because pepper is spicier than salt. I can see that, Pep certainly is more free-spirited, so I’ma go with that one for now.
People liked The Showstopper, but it wasn’t anywhere near a mega hit. I think it’s a great song. I think you can kind of tell that it was a school project; I don’t think a lot of money went into it. It’s a really fun song, and I love it. I had never listened to The Show before, and I did very recently. The Showstopper is of course a response to The Show, so one really should hear both songs. The former makes a bit more sense if you have heard the latter. Now calling themselves Salt N Pepa, with Spinderella having been added to the group, the girls signed with Next Plateau records and produced their first full length album, Hot, Cool, and Vicious. This album included The Showstopper as well as a few other minor hits, such as Tramp. DJ Cameron Paul remixed the b-side of Tramp, Push It. That was SNP’s first smash hit and was nominated for a Grammy, and the album went platinum. It was super-tight, yo!
I was 4 years old when all of this was going on, so I don’t actually remember any of it. I loved Salt N Pepa as soon as I was old enough to appreciate music to any degree, which was probably when I was like 10 or 12. I fell in love with the album Black’s Magic and later Very Necessary, and then I had to backtrack and get every album they had ever released. When I bought Hot, Cool, and Vicious I was very confused by the woman on the cover. She DID NOT look a thing like Spinderella. As it turns out, Deidra Roper was not the first Spinderella. Some chic called Latoya Hansen was the original Spinderella, but she was dismissed due to undisclosed issues and replaced with Dee Dee before the first tour, however Latoya did stick around long enough to make the cover of the first album. I don’t like to think about her when I can avoid it, though. As far as anyone anywhere is concerned (except maybe Latoya herself!) there always has been and always will be only ONE Spinderella. Cut it up one time. Latoya still operates under the name The Original. I know…LAME!
Their next album came two years later in ‘88, and was called A Salt With a Deadly Pepa, and the title of the album really is the best part of the album. They covered The Isley Brothers’ Shake Your Thang (and did a hella good job with it) and that song earned them their second Grammy nomination. They also covered Twist & Shout, but I don’t think they really thought that one through. The album eventually did go gold.
In 1990 the girls released their 3rd album, called Black’s Magic. Salt and Pepa took on more production and writing responsibilities on this album, which I think shows. It just seems more personal than ASWADP. Let’s Talk About Sex was the second single and was a huge hit for them, but also caused a lot of controversy. It makes me laugh when I think about it. At the very moment, there aren’t really any ladies doing much of anything in the hip hop world, but consider Lil’ Kim. When she isn’t in prison she’s rapping about “how many licks does it take to get to the center of my…oh! OH!” and you know she isn’t talking about a tootsie pop. However, nobody really complained about that back in 2000 or so, whenever she released that. But Salt N Pepa wanna talk about sex a little bit in 1990 and people freak out! The song faced a lot of criticism but did that stop ‘em? Nope. The single went gold, the album went platinum with their cover of You Showed Me. The first single released from this album was Expression, written and produced by Salt, and went platinum.
Salt N Pepa, in their Very Necessary days, with their new sexy look
Very Necessary followed Black’s Magic. VN was released late in ‘93 with Shoop being the lead single. Salt and Pepa had become VERY sexy in the last three years. They shed their big, baggy hip hop clothes in exchange for tighter, more revealing outfits. Their hairstyles became smoother and more feminine (no more big hair for them!). I think this was probably a necessary change considering the content of much of the album. Never before had they so openly rapped about enjoying sex sheerly for the pleasure of it. They rapped about the politics and mechanics of it in Let’s Talk About Sex, and they checked out the fella with the high-top fade in Shake Your Thang, and many people mistakenly believe that Push It is about sex, and if you try hard enough you can read that into it, but it is actually about dancing and Salt N Pepa have lately been introducing the song as having political significance in recent performances (they “push it” for single mothers, an end to gang violence, in support of our president and such), but it wasn’t until Shoop that they really got down to who was going to do what to whom and for how long, and they really needed a sexier image if that’s what they were going to be talking about. Incidentally the video accompanying Shoop was hella sexy. Their dance outfits are hot, and I love their beach outfits particularly Pepa’s striped little boy shorts with the dress that is split all the way down the front starting in between her boobs, and Salt’s little pointy, floppy hat is amazing. Now that I am sitting here typing it and seeing it written down, it sounds goofy, but back in ‘93 it was hot.
I wanna shoop
Even hotter than the Shoop video is the Whatta Man video. The sexy videos definitely helped boost sales, but the music itself is air tight. Heaven and Hell was a minor hit, but a very excellent song about the trials of inner city life. Whatta Man contains some of the cleverest lyrics ever written and who can resist singing along with Shoop (Brotha, wanna thank ya motha for a butt like that!). The album went four times platinum in the US, making it their best selling album ever. None of Your Business was nominated for and won a Grammy. I heard Salt say not too long ago that that it is the only SNP song she kind of regrets. She said she doesn’t think it was very responsible of them to use the line, “If she wanna be a freak and sell it on the weekend,” thus condoning prostitution, and the group no longer performs that song. I see where she’s coming from, but come on it’s a good song.
After Very Necessary Salt N Pepa did a few guest spots and soundtrack contributions and such. Ain’t Nuthin But a She Thang got decent air time as I recall. It was released with another of their sexy videos. It always made me chuckle a little, though. The song is all about how wrong it is of some men to underestimate and objectify women, however in the video Salt, dressed in what is certainly not a standard issue police uniform with a tight shirt and tiny shorts, kicks her legs about on the hood of a police car in a sexy manner. What man would not want to be pulled over by that cop? The video also features Pepa writhing around seductively in a pair of extra tight cutoff jean shorts leaned over a car with grease smeared on her, just screaming “objectify me!” Despite that, it is a very empowering song which shows that a woman can do anything a man can do (and some things men can’t do) and I think the point of the sexy video is to show that women can do typical “man stuff” and still be feminine and look better than any man doing it.
Finally in ‘97 SNP released Brand New, their 5th studio album. RU Ready was the lead single from the album, but didn’t do extremely well on the charts. They followed that with Gitty Up, inspired by Rick James’s Give it to Me, which performed even more poorly on the charts. Red Ant, their new record label, declared bankruptcy upon the release of Brand New and thus provided no financial backing for the album resulting in no promotion. I read somewhere, although I cannot cite where so this information may be less than accurate, that Red Ant settled with Salt N Pepa for 11 million. Of that, I read that they paid Spinderella only two million, which was part of the source of contention between Salt N Pepa and Spinderella. RU Ready and Gitty Up are not my favorite songs on the album, and I lament that those are the only two singles that made it to the radio. Imagine featuring Cheryl Crow is probably one of the best songs they’ve ever recorded, but it never became a single. I’ve seen online a very very rough cut of a video that apparently was filmed, but I assume that their record label’s financial troubles are what prevented that from ever being finished and making it to television. Overall the album went gold, which isn’t shabby at all, but still it is a much better album than A Salt With a Deadly Pepa, which also just went gold, and Brand New is good enough that it should have gone platinum at least as many times as Very Necessary did, probably more (I like it better).
SNP toured for the final time in 1999. Again, without any financial backing from their record label, the tour was pretty low key. They toured clubs rather than arenas, which saddened me. I was 17 and couldn’t get into a club. But that is a wrong which will be set right when Janet and I go see SNP in Biloxi, MS on September 4th!!! After the tour, not much went on. They released a couple greatest hits albums, Pepa married and divorced Treach from Naughty by Nature, and Salt N Pepa officially divorced each other in 2002. Cheryl said that she had had enough of the music industry and didn’t want to have to deal with the pressure anymore. She later revealed that she suffered from bulimia as a result of the industry’s pressure to be thin and attractive, and had suffered from depression all her life.
Salt N Pepa at a recent show in Biloxi, MS
In 2007, Salt N Pepa officially reunited and starred in The Salt N Pepa Show on VH1, which showed them trying to work out their past problems so that they could become Salt N Pepa once again. Pep was particularly upset by the way Salt left the group, suddenly and without explanation. On the show, Salt finally explained to Pepa about her eating disorder and depression and told her that she needed some time apart from the group. She said that her whole life her only identity had been Salt of Salt N Pepa, and she needed time away from that to explore herself and find out who she truly is as an individual. She sincerely apologized to Sandy for the way that she left, and Sandy sincerely forgave her. Spinderella got to air her frustration about being treated as hired help rather than as a full-fledged member of the group. It seems like they have come to understand each other better in a way that will let them balance their individuality with their group identity. Since then, they have been functioning as a group once again. Salt N Pepa have been performing occasionally, most notably in Hawaii in 2009. Even more notable is their show in Biloxi, MS. Cheryl is married to Gavin Wray. Spin has a weekly radio show called The Backspin and frequently spins shows at clubs on the west coast and elsewhere. Sandy is still single, and will be starring in her own reality show in which she looks for love. A 6th studio album has been promised and it was suggested that it might be released sometime this year, but we will see if that actually comes to fruition or not, although it looks promising since they have written at least two new songs, which they performed in Biloxi.
