I remember when Sir Mix-a-lot’s song “Baby Got Back” came out, and the stir it caused. Unfortunately, at that time (1990) I wasn’t a TV watcher and didn’t spend a lot of time watching MTV or any other music video source.
It wasn’t until YouTube came around that I finally got to go back and watch all those 1980s & 1990s videos that I missed when they were current. And I noticed something that surprised me. In videos that came out prior to Baby Got Back, the girls/women who appeared in videos —even black girls in rap videos — were hella skinny (for 1980s video girls, I say, “cocaine skinny”). But videos that came out after Baby Got Back, after 1990 and right up until today, it seems that all I see is girls with booties. Even the white girls have booties.
It’s been 23 years since Baby Got Back. If that song was indeed the reason behind the change, I have to say it was an important song (even if it did kill Mix’s career). It seems like it convinced women that they don’t need to be rail-thin to be considered sexy.
What do you think? Was that song as influential as I think it was?
No. Black hip hop videos were glorifying big booties long before Baby Got Back. As a matter of fact, back in the day, before big record companies got so involved in the slick packaging and placed more model type girls in the videos, girls used to be even more big bootied, with fat thighs and just generally thicker than they are today.
I actually always thought some of the dancers in the “Baby Got Back” video looked pretty skinny for a song specifically about the allure of big butts. E.U.'s “Da Butt” predated “Baby Got Back” by a couple of years, and the women there look a bit curvier to me – although they are wearing more concealing/baggier clothing so it’s not a perfect comparison.
That would have been nice, wouldn’t it? But I was a teenager in the '90s, and “Baby Got Back” did not have that effect on any of the (mostly white) girls I knew. It was just considered a funny, somewhat risque novelty song. “Baby Got Back” came before the “heroin chic” look of the mid-90s, so the fashion/beauty industry clearly didn’t take Sir Mix-A-Lot’s message to heart. As for music videos, well, Kate Moss has appeared in several.
I noticed that too. I wonder how much the record company had to do with that, though. They were bigger-bootied than most girls in “mainstream” videos, but when I saw Mix perform the song live on Arsenio Hall (?), long before I saw the actual video, I remember that his female dancers had much bigger butts than the girls in the video.
For comparison, look at the girls in Young MC’s “Bust a Move” video, which was contemporary with Baby Got Back:
I believe the term brick house simply means well built. The song specifically lists measurements 36-24-36 so I’m not sure it’s a great example of thicker. A 24" waist is around a size 2.
Then again I never understood how Baby Got Back was about anything other than big booty. Doesn’t he even say “itty bitty waist” along with the big butt?
For serious. In my mind, that song is a celebration of thickness to embrace.
Sleeps, ‘thick’ in black slang *does *mean small waisted. It means ass, big thighs and hips and maybe boobs, but small waist and flat stomach. Big girls aren’t ‘thick’. We’re…well…big.
I know he says ‘itty bitty’ waist, but I think that just rhymes nicely. I would say most guys in hip hop, urban culture who talk about thick girls mean small waist compared to the rest.
Good lord I love this song. Who’da thunk that one of the most enduring songs from that era would be this one? No clue about the video question in the OP - I am inclined to agree with the other posters who say: a) other songs came before it that glorified a full-figured woman’s body; and b) other video trends were happening around then that challenge the OP (as mentioned, heroin chic, etc…).
I guess what I would ask, off-topic to the OP but specific to this song: okay, so what songs is Baby Got Back most like? I am NOT considering other great big-figure songs like Fat Bottomed Girls or Brick House (or Big Bottoms by Spinal Tap ;)).
How about Respect? One one hand, Baby Got Back is completely objectifying women - but it does so in a way that makes it clear that a black woman can, should and must be proud of her body - in a completely bumpin’ song? I feel like both songs start out getting our grooves shakin’, but the more we listen, the more we realize that there is more being said here.
“My anaconda don’t want none, unless its gots buns, Hon” is a declaration of respect in its own incredibly goofily-phrased way, innit?
How about that other ‘90’s anthem to women’s feelings, Alanis’ You Oughta Know? Less of a clear link, but another rockin’ song that gets your attention with a good groove and sexy lyrics, but the more you listen to it - coupled with the HUGE sales that CD had, led by the explosion of that single - the more you heard how it was Alanis’ big play to move from Robin Sparkles (for you How I Met Your Mother fans) to make a bigger statement.
…and for the line “girls are sadistic - materialistic - lookin’ for a man makes them opportunistic; see them lyin’ on the beach, perpetratin’ a tan, so that the brother with the money can be their man…” (off the top of my head; sorry if I missed anything ;))
I don’t agree with the sentiment, but damn, that’s a great rhyme.
Mix-a-lot almost seems to be directly addressing “Brick House” when he says, “36-24-36? Only if she’s 5’ 3”!"
Well, obviously it’s going to take some time before influence becomes pervasive, so of course there were other trends happening at the same time. I guess my point was that this is the one from that time period that seems to have stuck. Admittedly, a lot it probably has to do with the fact that hip-hop culture has worked its way into just about every musical genre to the point that even white female artists often have nice, round butts now. The “heroic chic” look didn’t really stick around. Mix himself even mentioned this in ** Ellis Aponte Jr.**'s link:
