![]() ![]() No one could deny their hits or their staying power. Salt-N-Pepa had to vault over skeptics with sheer commercial clout. “Because I’ve been around since the start of this.” ![]() “I’m like, ‘What do you consider real Hip-Hop?’ ” Jeff says. “I remember going to see MC Hammer in Philadelphia at a sold-out concert before he put out ‘U Can’t Touch This.’ Once he put out ‘U Can’t Touch This,’ it was like, ‘Oh, he’s wack, Hammer’s not real.’ Everybody loved Kris Kross and once Kris Kross blew up, everybody started saying ‘Kris Kross ain’t real.’ That was a crazy time.” Will grew up around the corner from Steady B! There wasn’t an ounce of the suburbs in my upbringing!” “Anything that got notoriety from the white audience or the pop audience, you were automatically put in this box like you weren’t Hip-Hop or you were from the suburbs. ![]() But some hardcore fans were skeptic about who could claim ownership of Hip-Hop’s voice, something that frustrated DJ Jazzy Jeff to no end. Pop rap got Hip-Hop on the radio, and it was not just pop radio but also R&B radio rotations that were embracing these artists. All of that started changing when everybody got put in certain categories.” Hip-Hop hadn’t gotten to the point where we had subgenres. One of the first big tours we went on was Salt-N-Pepa, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, Run-D.M.C., Public Enemy. “Salt-N-Pepa, Kid ’n Play, all of us pretty much came out around the same time. “You didn’t feel it in the beginning,” Jeff says. Like Salt-N-Pepa, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince were at the forefront of the radio rap wave. I used to be like, ‘We’re selling more, we’re killing it, why aren’t we getting the same respect?’ The same DJ came up to me and said, ‘I just want to say I apologize. “One DJ in New York dissed us,” Pepa says. Pop rap acts suddenly became criticized for their success with mainstream audiences, and Salt-N-Pepa caught additional flak as women. In the late 1980s through the early 1990s, as Hip-Hop saw groundbreaking, impactful releases by political rappers like Public Enemy and gangsta rappers like N.W.A., audiences saw some divide over Hip-Hop credibility. Hurby was unapologetic in wanting to make poppy records. Kid ’n Play scored hits with “Make It Funky” and “Rollin’ With Kid ’n Play” before landing starring roles in the New Line Cinema comedy House Party. Photos by Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archivesĭana Dane (“Cinderfella Dana Dane”), Sweet Tee (“On the Smooth Tip”), and Kwamé (“The Rhythm”) all saw major success in 1988 and ’89. “When everyone had their music come out, Salt-N-Pepa was already big,” Pep adds. Kwamé, Sweet Tee, all of us, Dana Dane, we were family.”Īnd it was Salt-N-Pepa’s popularity that set the stage for the Idol Makers’ successful late ’80s run. “We shared tour buses together Heavy D & the Boyz. “Kid was always bugging out and Play was like Salt,” Pepa says of the Idol Makers days. The crew, along with fellow rap hitmakers like Heavy D & the Boyz and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, was pushing the genre into pop and R&B spaces that had previously ignored it. ![]() The Idol Makers camp featured artists churning out catchy, radio-friendly rap tunes that got a lot of airplay outside of the typical underground rap stations. So the jacket was designed on that personal level.” “Play designed the SNP logo, he sketched it all out,” Salt explains, recalling how the iconic Salt- N-Pepa jacket came from within the crew. Everything they did was born of the creativity within each other. Before it even had a name, the fledgling business was built around friends from the Elmhurst, Queens neighborhood: Salt-N-Pepa, Kid ’n Play, Sweet Tee, Kwamé, and Dana Dane, among others. After “Push It” became a hit in 1987 and was re-released to even wider success in early 1988, Hurby Azor’s accomplishments with Salt-N-Pepa put him in a position to launch his own production and management company. ![]()
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