Salt-n-Pepa's unshakable conviction

Interview, Oct, 1995 by Mary Wilson

SD: That's good to hear, because people break up under such terrible circumstances. And being in a group is almost like being in a marriage, you know.

MW: Not almost. It is. [laughs]

CJ: And even in a marriage, people strive to keep their identity and their own individuality. It's all about understanding. You have to constantly put yourself in another person's shoes to see what they're thinking or what they're feeling or why they might have said something you don't understand. That's what me and Pepa have learned over the years.

MW: How old were you girls when you started?

CJ: Sandi was twenty, I was nineteen, and Spinderella was sixteen.

MW: You were a little older than us. We were all thirteen when we started singing together. When you start out that young, you realize very quickly that in any group situation you have to allow others to have their own opinons, their own likes and dislikes, and to do their own thing." [Someone calls so on the other line.]

CJ: Do you have to go, Sandi?

SD: Yeah. I'm getting ready to open a store in Atlanta. So I have all these meetings set up today.

[SD says good-bye.]

CJ: Talking about doing your own thing, Sandi's opening up her own clothing store [Hollyhood] and she's real excited about it.

MW: It's healthy when you each have your own interests. [pause] Let me see. My best friend wanted me to ask you a question. She said, "Talk to them about the difference in style between the Supremes and Salt-N-Pepa." You girls look the way we would have loved to have been able to look - like sexy women. [laughs] I find the women of today are much more assertive and sure of themselves than we were. In fact, we allowed ourselves to be directed by the men. But the one thing we were assertive about was singing, and being glamorous. Is that assertive, sexy image of Salt-N-Pepa a conscious choice or did it just evolve because that's the way you are?

CJ: Basically, everything just fell into place because of the way we are. Sometimes we like to be glamorous, and sometimes we just feel like getting raw and sexy. When we came out with our song "Shoop," which was the first song we released after we all had kids, we were all a little overweight. We're still not model size. You know, we look like real women. And in that song we were talking very boldly about our sexuality and how we like men. That was different for us, and I think that's when people started looking at us differently. When we get raw and sexy some people say, "Why do you have to go there?" I feel like, as long as you're letting the world know that you're intelligent and you're to be respected and you have a mind of your own and you're taking care of business, ain't nothing wrong with showing off what you got, especially when you work out almost every day to get it. Of course, you have to show it with taste and with class. It's about having an attitude of your own.

MW: And being a pioneer. You guys are pioneers in rap - or is it hip-hop that you do?

CJ: It's all the same. But sometimes people don't know what to call us, because we're so daring and we don't follow anybody's agenda. We have our own agenda. That's part of the reason we've been so successful. I feel that's what you guys did, too.