‘Baby Got Back’ goes back 25 years
Sir Mix-a-Lot gets behind his favorite pop-culture pop-ups
On June 28, 1992, Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back began its No. 1 reign on the
Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The fanny-forward anthem parked there for five consecutive weeks on its way to being named song of the summer and selling 2.4 million copies to date, according to Nielsen Music. Sir Mix-aLot remembers feeling elated and terrified when he hit the milestone.
“When you go No. 1, you realize there’s no No. 0. There’s no place to go but down, baby!” says the rapper/producer (real name: Anthony Ray).
“But I’ve never been ashamed of this song, ever. I’d love to say I knew the whole time (that it’d be an enduring hit), but there’s no way you can know a song is going to last that long.”
A quarter-century later, Baby Got Back remains a tail-feather touchstone in pop culture. Ray, 53, shares some of his favorite uses in movies, music and TV.
1. NICKI MINAJ’S ‘ANACONDA’ The hip-hop queen’s ode to booty, which hit No. 2 on the Hot 100 in September 2014, heavily sampled Sir Mix-a-Lot’s original with his blessing. “When Nicki Minaj called me on the phone and I heard that song, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s going to hit,’ ” Ray says. “I was flattered that she even considered it, and one thing that really moved me was that she wasn’t just going to do the song, she wanted to make sure it was artistically credible.” The rapper was already a fan of Minaj’s Did It on ’Em but became an even bigger admirer when she released Anaconda’s provocative music video. “Let’s just say (it) had a couple hundred million views — I was probably at least 10 million of them.”
2. FRIENDS The track played prominently in a Season 9 episode of the popular sitcom titled “The One With Ross’s Inappropriate Song” in 2002. The only way Ross (David Schwimmer) can make his baby, Emma, laugh is by singing Baby Got Back. Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) disapproves but winds up caving with her own spin on the tune in an effort to make the infant giggle. “I thought it was hilarious,” Ray says. “That was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen on television.” And who rapped it better? “Oh, you’ve got to pick Jennifer no matter what. Even if she sang it backwards with devil ears on, I’d still pick her.”
3. SEATTLE SYMPHONY In 2014, Sir Mix-a-Lot went viral when he invited women on stage at a Seattle Symphony concert to dance to a strings-assisted rendition of Baby Got Back. “That’s probably my favorite,” the Seattle native says of the clip, which garnered 4.1 million views to date. “Literally three hours before the show, we ran through the song and there were a bunch of mistakes. The conductor assured me: ‘Don’t worry about it. We got it.’ We walked out onstage and I was terrified. It ain’t easy to do something like that and make it look organic.”
4. BRIAN WILLIAMS One of Jimmy Fallon’s most popular segments on The Tonight Show was cutting together split-second clips of Williams and making him “rap” hip-hop classics such as Sugar Hill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight and Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice. Another mash-up featured the news anchor’s take on Baby Got Back, with Today host Kathie Lee Gifford delivering the famous “Me so horny” line. “That was one of the funniest ones I’ve ever seen,” Ray says. “I love all the ones (Fallon has) done. That’s a lot of work, editing all that stuff together.”
5. BLAKE LIVELY Last summer, the actress drew backlash when she posted a curvaceous redcarpet photo on Instagram with the caption, “L.A. face with an Oakland booty” (a Baby Got Back lyric). The rapper jumped to her defense. “People were like, ‘She’s not black!’ And I’m like, ‘Uh, do you remember what Baby Got Back was about?’ ” Ray says. “It’s about the fact that African-American beauty was not considered beautiful by the mainstream. She’s about as mainstream as you can get, and the fact that she was quoting the lyrics basically meant the song did what it was supposed to do. I didn’t understand the uproar at all.” Although he has never met her personally, “I did tweet about it, and I know she got it, ( because she) clicked a ‘like’ on it.”