Hip-hop legends Salt-N-Pepa added one more monumental honor to their mantle with their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as the recipients of this year’s Musical Influence Award. Both Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandra “Pepa” Denton were on hand to accept on Saturday, Nov. 8, as was the duo’s formerly estranged DJ Spinderella (Deidra Roper). Roper became the first female DJ inducted into the Rock Hall.
“This is for every woman who picked up a mic when they told her her she couldn’t,” said James while accepting the honor. While both Denton and Roper gave individual speeches thanking their friends, family, genre, and audience, James used her time at the podium to tell the crowd that the group is fighting for the rights to their master recordings. “As we celebrate this moment, fans can’t even stream our music. It’s been taken down from all streaming platforms because the industry still doesn’t want to play fair. Salt-N-Pepa have never been afraid of a fight. This is the Influence Award. We have to keep using our influence until the industry honors creativity the way the audience does with: love, respect and fairness, and that includes streaming platforms too.”
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Presenting Salt-N-Pepa with their Musical Influence Award was Missy Elliott (who became the first female rapper to be nominated and inducted into the Rock Hall in 2023). “The reason that you even know Missy Elliott’s name is because of Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella,” Elliott said in her impassioned speech, embodying an electric preacher. “When you see your favorite rapper, understand that if they’re on top, there’s a foundation that they’re standing on. These three women are the bricklayers to the foundation that holds hip-hop together. They gave us their shoulders to stand on.” Elliott wore a bejeweled letterman inspired by the trio’s iconic look.
Before the speeches, Salt-N-Pepa took the stage to perform a medley of their hits, kicking it off with the iconic lines of “My Mic Sounds Nice” into “Shoop.” Next capturing the boldness of their 1991 smash “Let’s Talk About Sex,” they performed it in front of massive digital banners toting the phrase and a line of male dancers humping the floor.
DJ Spinderella got a moment of solo-shine to scratch before En Vogue strutted on stage to perform their 1993 collaboration, “Whatta Man.” Pepa modernized her verse by swapping in “Barack” for “Arnold” (i.e. Arnold Schwarzenegger) in the line “A body like Arnold with a Denzel [Washington] face.”
For the grand finale, their original producer Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor joined them commanding the crowd to dance to “Push It” (to which Cyndi Lauper gladly obliged).
Salt-N-Pepa were one most of the most influential and successful hip-hop acts of the late-Eighties and early-Nineties. They became the first female rap act to earn gold and platinum status when their debut, Hot, Cool, & Vicious sold over a million copies, fueled by the success of their smash single “Push It.”
They scored additional hits with “Expression” and “Let’s Talk About Sex” before finally cracking the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993 with back-to-back singles, “Shoop” and “Whatta Man” (which peaked at Numbers Four and Three, respectively). Both songs appeared on Salt-N-Pepa’s multi-platinum album, Very Necessary, which also featured their Grammy-winning track, “None of Your Business.”
Salt-N-Pepa have received plenty of accolades and honors, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 2021 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2022. In a recent interview with Billboard, James said the Rock Hall was basically “the last big one” for the group, adding they were “very, very excited.”
She continued: “It’s kind of like what you want in your career; you want longevity, you want recognition, and the fact that everybody’s representing Salt-N-Pepa’s contribution to music is perfection to me at this point in my life. A lot of people are saying ‘long overdue.’ I say it’s right on time.”
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