Salt-N-Pepa

Salt-N-Pepa was the very first all-female rap crew that opened doors for women in hip hop, that until then had been dominated by men. Cheryl “Salt” James Wray and Sandy “Pepa” Denton sarted rapping when Salt’s boyfriend asked them to rap a song he had to produce for school. The three then started to write a song called “The Show Stopper” as an answer to “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh and “Slick Rick”. After this song had become a success Cheryl and Sandy founded the group Salt-N-Pepa, which name was based on a line of their song “The Show Stopper”. They were later joined by DJ/rapper Spinderella (born Deidre “Dee Dee” Roper).

Famous for their songs “Push it”, “Shake Your Thang” and “Let’s talk about Sex”, they climbed the charts in the late 80’s and early 90’s and several of their singles won gold and platinum. Salt-N-Pepa also was one of the first groups that was more pop-oriented than others. This was one of the reasons for their great success in the early 90’s in which this kind of music became more and more popular. The group wrote vaguely pro-feminist lyrics that gained their power through being sung by the sexy trio. Although the group is not active anymore since 1993 they had changed the hip hop scene forever and had opened the world of men to women.

Sources:

- wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt-n-Pepa

- all music: http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:fifoxq95ld6e

- Salt-N.Pepa official fan website: http://salt-n-pepa.org/