Sir Mix-a-Lot - Baby Got Back (Lyrics)

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Artist/Group: Sir Mix-a-Lot
Album: Mack Daddy
Released: 1992
Label: Def American/Rhyme Cartel Records

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"Baby Got Back" is a song written, co-produced and recorded by American rapper and songwriter Sir Mix-a-Lot. Released in May 1992 by Def American and Reprise as the second single from his third album, Mack Daddy, the song samples the 1986 Detroit techno single "Technicolor" by Channel One. At the time of its original release, the song caused controversy because of its outspoken and blatantly sexual lyrics objectifying women, as well as specific references to the buttocks, which some people found objectionable. The song's accompanying music video was briefly banned by MTV. Mix-a-Lot defended the song as being empowering to curvaceous women who were being shown skinny models as an ideal for beauty.

It debuted at number 75 on the US Billboard Hot 100 on April 11 and hit number one twelve weeks later. The single spent five weeks at the top of the chart. "Baby Got Back" was the second best-selling song in the US in 1992. It was ranked number 17 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop" in 2008, while Billboard magazine ranked it among the "500 Best Pop Songs of All Time" in 2023.

In the song's prelude there is a conversation between two (presumably) thin, white Valley girls, similar to girl talk in Frank Zappa's "Valley Girl". One girl (dubbed Linda by Amylia Dorsey) remarks to her friend, "Oh, my, God Becky, look at her butt! It is so big... She's just so black!", at which point Sir Mix-a-Lot begins rapping.

The first verse begins with "I like big butts and I cannot lie" and most of the song is about the rapper's attraction to women with large buttocks. The second and third verse challenge mainstream norms of beauty: "I ain't talkin' 'bout Playboy. Cause silicone parts are made for toys." and "So Cosmo says you're fat. Well I ain't down with that!"

The song came from a meeting between Sir Mix-a-Lot and Amylia Dorsey, who saw little representation of full-figured women in media. The idea came from a 1980s-era Budweiser commercial featuring very thin, Valley girl-esque models with different skin colors. They decided to dedicate a song to the opposite, featuring curvy women of color. Mix and Dorsey sought to "broaden the definition of beauty."

Sir Mix-a-Lot commented in a 1992 interview: "The song doesn't just say I like large butts, you know? The song is talking about women who damn near kill themselves to try to look like these beanpole models that you see in Vogue magazine." He explains that most women respond positively to the song's message, especially black women: "They all say, 'About time.'"

The dialogue of actress Papillon Soo Soo saying "Me so horny" is sampled from the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket to complete Sir Mix-a-Lot's lyric, "That butt you got makes..."

In 2014, according to TMZ, Sir Mix-a-Lot says it was Jennifer Lopez's moves as a Fly Girl on the 90s show In Living Color that first inspired him to write "Baby Got Back".

Larry Flick from Billboard wrote, "First offering from rapper's major-label debut, Mack Daddy, cheekily rhapsodizes about the joys of women with prominent backsides. Cute rhymes and slammin' beats add up to a potential smash at several formats."

J.D. Considine from The Baltimore Sun commented, "In some cases, what's said can be as simple as Sir Mix-a-Lot's assertion 'I like big butts!' in the single 'Baby Got Back'. On the surface, it may seem that all he's doing is expressing an opinion, but there's more to it than Mix-a-Lot's personal preferences. At root, 'Baby Got Back' challenges the dominant standard for physical beauty in our culture, a standard that stresses long legs, slim hips, small buttocks and has no room for women with wide hips or protuberant posteriors. And the fact that 'Baby Got Back' spent five weeks at No. 1 suggests that there are millions who agree with his assessment."

James Bernard from Entertainment Weekly remarked that the song "alternates deftly between a critique of the Cosmo/Playboy narrow-minded — and narrow-hipped — standard of female beauty and a bawdy appreciation of, er, generous rear ends."

In Melody Maker's review of the album, "Baby Got Back" was named "worst of all" and "a hip hop 'Fatty Bum Bum' and - Warning! Warning! - could be a novelty hit."

Mark Coleman from Rolling Stone said the song "celebrates a section of the anatomy long revered by rappers ("beggin' for a piece of that bubble" is a new twist)."

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