#SALT N PEPA

Album of the Day: Blacks’ Magic by Salt-N-Pepa This is the first rap album I ever had that wasn’t a soundtrack. Back then, rap was still seen by the mainstream (read: white people) as either dangerous or some kind of novelty. My dad, for example, loved it when the Fat Boys did singles with Chubby Checker or the Beach Boys, but he didn’t really want me listening to rap music. My mom liked the Fresh Prince, but otherwise outright hated it. The boys I’d grown up with in my very, very yuppie neighborhood thought rap was ridiculous and got very into mainstream hair bands. Only my cousin liked rap music, and she would sometimes set me on the path of music that hadn’t hit the radio yet. She had somehow ended up with two copies of Blacks’ Magic on cassette, and she knew I was really into Salt-N-Pepa, so she did one of the best things she ever did for me and gave me one of her copies. It was very validating; no one before or since has ever given me a hip hop album. Shit, I’m 49 and my dad still wouldn’t get me a Beyonce album for Christmas. It’s still one of my all time favorites, and it still sounds great. I miss the more lo-fi, homemade sound of the rap of this era, and it’s still my favorite of their albums (and they have some classics). Video: the music video for “Let’s Talk About Sex,” their controversial hit and the biggest of the album’s four singles. The mainstream media was predictably stupid about this one. The video was directed by Millicent Shelton.