"Baby Got Back" 1992 hip hop song by Sir Mix-a-Lot from his album Mack Daddy. The song famously starts with a discussion between two thin, white valley girls, with one girl remarking to the other "Oh my God, Becky! Look at her butt! It is so big. She looks like one of those rap guys' girlfriends." At the time of its original release, the song caused controversy with its outspoken and blatantly sexual lyrics about the female anatomy, and the video was briefly banned by MTV.[1] However, it has remained very popular over time. It samples Channel One's "Technicolor". In 2008, it was ranked number 6 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop[citation needed] . [edit] Chart performance and awards Sir Mix-a-Lot's best known song, "Baby Got Back" reached number 1 on the United States' Billboard Hot 100 chart for five weeks in the summer of 1992, and won a 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance. It is known to be a fairly common song over a decade later in many movies and video performances, even in cartoons. It was placed at number 6 on Vh1's Greatest Songs of the '90s. [edit] Alternate versions - Sir Mix-a-Lot has recorded at least three different commercial versions of the hit song, one a Target commercial aimed towards preteens that replaces "I like big butts and I cannot lie" with "I like backpacks and I cannot lie", the other is a ringtone that begins "Pick up the phone! Pick up the phone! 'Cause you want this call and you cannot lie!". An Adelie penguin named Ramone sings to an Emperor penguin named Gloria in the movie Happy Feet: "I like big tails and I can't deny!"
- A reworded version was released soon after by MC Sampler (Harry Artin), named "Baby Got Jack", where instead of wanting big butts, Sampler wants a "White honkey, with a real small booty"; this song is commonly miscredited to Adam Sandler and Weird Al Yankovic, much to the distress of Sampler as his YouTube video implies.
- Sir Mix-a-Lot played a heavy metal version of "Baby Got Back" during a live show at the Showbox in Seatttle on July 18, 2008.
- On the Robot Chicken Season 3 finale, "Chirlaxx", Sir Mix-a-Lot sings a parody called "Table Be Round", which is about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
- In April 2009, Burger King released a commercial in the U.S. promoting the opportunity to receive a BK Kids' Meal deal that includes a SpongeBob Squarepants toy for 99 cents with a purchase of an Adult Value Meal. The commercial is a parody of the music video featuring rapping by The Burger King who starts with the line "I Like Square Butts, and I cannot lie..." and women flaunting their square-shaped buttocks throughout. Sir-Mix-A-Lot himself makes a brief cameo appearance in the commercial watching the ad, saying "Booty is booty."[6]
[edit] In other media - Sir Mix a Lot guest starred on Treehouse of Horror XVII and sang a parody called "Baby Got Fat".
- To promote the single, a giant inflatable posterior toured the country, appearing outside record stores. It can be glimpsed in Joel Schumacher's 1993 film Falling Down.
- On the song "It's On" from rap group Naughty by Nature's 1993 album 19 Naughty III, Vin Rock spoke out against Sir-Mix-a-Lot and this song, stating: "Baby ain't got back/ Baby got Black/ So when you see Black baby, you respect that".
- On VH1's Greatest Songs of the 90s, Sir-Mix-a-Lot joked that he was "the dancing turd" during the music video, in which he is on top of a huge sculpture that resembles a butt crack.
- In The Simpsons episode "Midnight Rx", two musical scores are present: first Huey Lewis's "I Want a New Drug" and then "Baby Got Back". Dr. Hibbert performs it.
- In the "Treehouse of Horror XVII" episode of The Simpsons, while Homer becomes a humongous green blob, Sir Mix-a-Lot sings a parody that starts off "I like big guts and I cannot lie..."
- Hardcore band Throwdown covered the song for Too Legit for the Pit: Hardcore Takes the Rap in 2001. This version appears on their Face in the Mirror EP.
- It was ranked the 12th greatest one-hit wonder and the 6th greatest song of the 1990s by VH1.
- In the TV sitcom Friends, Rachel and Ross sing it to their baby daughter Emma because it turns out to be the only song that makes the baby laugh.
- Donkey briefly sings this song in the closing of Shrek.
- In the Futurama episode "A Fishful of Dollars", when Fry was seen playing the song loudly in his 20th century apartment, Leela referred to the song as "classical music".
- The song was used in the film Jackass in the scene when Bam Margera, Tony Hawk, and Matt Hoffman are skateboarding in fat suits.
- In Shark Tale, the Head Shark is upset about the news he receives and his assistant flips the record, playing the song for a brief time then saying:"Hey, boss, You like big butts?" and resuming the other song on the other side of the record.
- In the film Scooby-Doo 2 Shaggy accidentally plays it in the manor on the gramophone for a brief minute
- American Idol Season 6 runner-up Blake Lewis performed this song with Sir Mix-a-Lot at Seattle's Westlake Center when Lewis returned home during the top three hometown visits.
- In Living Color makes a parody of the song called "Baby Got Snacks", in which Jamie Foxx portrays Trail-Mix-A-Lot.
- Kim Kardashian and Mark Ballas performed a mambo to this song on the seventh season of the U.S. version of Dancing With The Stars. They earned an 18/30.
- In One Tree Hill as part of Felix's dare night, Mouth, Skills and Fergie perform "Baby Got Back" on karaoke.
- In the NewsRadio episode "Rap," Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman) reads the lyrics to "Baby Got Back" while launching a protest against rap music. At the beginning of an earlier conversation, Bill asks if anyone has ever listened to rap before, to which Beth responds, "Does Sir Mix-a-Lot like booty?"
- Cameron Diaz dances to the song in the feature film Charlie's Angels.
- The song is played in the movie Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. The character Master Betty has one of his goons play it on a 80's style boombox as he fights. When the main character finds his defeated master, the master warns "Beware his song about big butts. He beats you up while he plays it."
- In 2008, the song is featured in an American commercial for Keystone Light beer where a man attempts to reconcile with an ex-girlfriend at a convenience store by claiming that he has matured. His explanation is interrupted by his cellphone's ringtone of "Baby Got Back", revealing that he has not.[7]
- In the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Unremarkable Voyage", Meatwad begins singing the song briefly when Shake mentions "Baby Got Back".
- In the MXC episode Desperate Housewives vs Ultimate Fighters Kenny begins singing part of "Baby Got Back" when Sir Mix-a-Lot is mentioned briefly.
- Robin Williams performs a few lines of this song in the animated film "Happy Feet" (2006).
- On the 17th episode of the 34th season of Saturday Night Live, the song was used in a fake advertisement depicting Sir Mix-a-Lot as the owner of a photo shop that enlarges women's bottoms in photographs. The advertisement incorporated the lyrics of the song and even parodied the opening dialogue.
- This song is on the Playstation 3 downloadable game Fat Princess. It is heard in the credits, and also if you have tips enabled, sometimes when you walk by a princess at the fattest she can be, the tip window will pop up with the other princess saying "Oh my God Becky, you look like one of those rap guy's girlfriends."
[edit] References [edit] See also |
