While selling warranties on washing machines at a Sears call center in Queens, friends Cheryl James and Sandra Denton joined as a hip-hop duo called Super Nature with the 1985 staccato track “The Show Stoppa (Is Stupid Fresh) ”. When they first heard on the radio, they danced together on top of a car. It was just the beginning: James became Salt and Denton became Pepa; the group changed its name and scored 10 hits on the Hot 100, including the 80s dance classic “Push It” and the 90s sex anthem “Shoop”, becoming one of the few female gold hip-hop stars male dominated was.
Departures from the I Love the ’90s tour circuit in recent years, the duo tells their story in a new Biographical Lifetime film, “Salt-N-Pepa”, released on Saturday, which captures both the rush to travel the world and the conflicts that arose in 2002. The group’s longtime DJ, Spinderella, is also a character in the film, but the biopic does not cover her unsuccessful lawsuit against the duo, which opened in 2019. The film – which they produced together with Queen Latifah and others – starts and ends with a unit note, showing their 2005 meeting for a VH1 event.
“It was something Pep and I were buying,” said Salt. “Pep called and said, ‘Girl, we have to make our movie before someone else does it.'” Latifah, an old friend, attended meetings where they chose the director (Melvin Van Peebles) and the screenwriter (Abdul Williams of “The Bobby Brown Story”).
The duo’s “Laverne & Shirley” style partnership – Salt calm and precise, Pepa loose and boisterous – continued despite a dispute with the man who helped them get started, abuse, divorce and Salt vs. personality conflicts. Pepa. “We can count a 36-year life in about two and a half hours,” said Pepa in a group interview with Zoom. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
For a film about the journey of two women, its producer and entrepreneur Hurby Azor, known as “Luv Bug”, plays a big role as a crucial creative force, especially at the beginning. How much did you struggle with the decision to emphasize your character?
SALT Well, the truth is the truth. And Hurby was our guy. He started out being my boyfriend. Being an artist was something that he personified and transferred to us. My mom took me to all the Broadway plays, and I took singing and dancing lessons, and did productions at home with my cousins for my aunts. But I didn’t know how to sing. I didn’t play any instruments. When hip-hop came up, it was an opportunity to realize something that I was passionate about – and that was through Hurby.
In an opening scene, we see Hurby (played by Cleveland Berto) training Pepa (played by Laila Odom) to rap without his Jamaican accent, and Salt (played by GG Townson) caught in the middle. How frustrating were those early days?
PEPA For me, with hip-hop, it was a way of life – we had these park jams where record players received electricity from streetlights. When Hurby felt that I was going to be Pepa, I was thrown into the studio. Hurby had his vision. He wanted it said, done – like that and in no other way. I had difficulty at first, jumping on the beat. Finally, I got it.
SALT Pep always says, “Hurby is our third,” and the chemistry between the three of us was explosive on many levels. Pep and Hurby used to fight like cats and dogs. It was just an explosion of creativity, passion, drama that resonated in a sound, a song, a movement.
Do opposites-attract part of your persona, as portrayed in the film, based on reality?
PEPA A hundred per cent.
SALT I am an introvert and a little recluse. What I love about being an artist is the creative process. I love taking something out of nowhere and making it a reality, I love the audience’s response, but I don’t necessarily love everything that comes along – the attention and the chatter. But Pep loves everything.
PEPA I’m an extra-extra-extrovert.
SALT Someone asked us, when we first met, what intrigued us about each other. What got her interested in me was that she was thinking, “Who is this girl who isn’t paying attention to me?”
PEPA When we were in college, I would go into the cafeteria and talk wildly, and I used to see Cheryl in the corner and fix it. It was a chemistry. I was pulled into it.
How much writing did you two write for the script and work separately or together?
PEPA Separately.
SALT There have been many rewrites. What I found frustrating – I’m just keeping it real – were some restrictions when you were making a movie that I wasn’t ready for.
PEPA Be real, Salt!
SALT Legal restrictions, infringing on the rights of other people that people had to sign, budget restrictions. What turned out to be important was the story of two women in an industry dominated by men who were friends first, who became business partners, who faced many struggles to be heard, to be taken seriously – from the record company to our producer Hurby. We have had struggles in our relationships and have chosen the wrong men repeatedly.
PEPA We can take them back to college, when it all started and we won $ 200 per show.
SALT And dividing.
There was a long period after the biggest hits of Salt-N-Pepa and before Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, when the path for women in hip-hop was limited. How much did you pay attention to that?
SALT I remember that question being asked a lot when there was a big empty space without women. I have no idea why, except this is a male-dominated music and business genre, and we had to go through a Hurby. There was a time when you needed to be endorsed by a field – a field of men. This is starting to change through social media and all the ways that people have to put themselves out there, without belonging to a Jay-Z or anyone else.
How many of the eight-ball jackets from the original “Push It” video, originally designed by your friend Christopher Martin (Play of Kid ‘n Play), do you each own?
PEPA The original was stolen behind the scenes of a presentation.
SALT I remember being Brixton, London, and someone breaking into the back door of our dressing room. We went in and the door was open and the jackets were gone.
PEPA Everything else was left – the wallets, everything.
In the film, at the moment of separation, Salt says: “I have to create a space that has nothing to do with you”. Now that you are together again, is it still important?
SALT Absolutely. When I left, I had to deal with many of my own problems, my own demons. It is healthy when you are in a group to also be able to maintain your individuality. We’ve been doing this since we were 18, 19, and I didn’t have the opportunity to find out who I was besides Salt-N-Pepa. I felt a lot of disconnection after a while, a lot of resentment, a lot of anger coming from Pep that I didn’t understand. I felt like I was in a spiral trying to prove myself to her: “Girl, I take care of you. Girl, I’m here for you. “Nothing I did or said could remedy what she was feeling. I feel like there was a big communication error.
PEPA [vigorously playing with her hair] What I mean is that you and I never talked – you keep telling me how I feel, say and think. When did you and I talk?
SALT I feel resentful towards you. And your answer –
PEPA It is a sensation that I have never been able to speak to her. That’s all she feels about everything. I’m dealing with her boyfriend being the manager! I am also going through an entire situation. We were in this together. When you’re feeling it all, I’m feeling it too.
How unified is Salt-N-Pepa today?
SALT Relationships go through different phases. I know one thing: I love Sandy and I know that Sandy loves me. It is difficult to be a friend and business partner, and anyone in that position can identify. Sometimes we will be married, sometimes we will be the brand’s parents and sometimes I will sleep on the couch.
PEPA But communication is the key to all successful relationships.