Every week on The Salt-N-Pepa Show, two MCs from the late Eighties try to prove they don’t hate each other (and the rap game), while our Rock Reality Show Recaps attempt to prove we don’t resent VH1 for exploiting the heroes of our youth. Here’s our take on the fifth episode: Thirty Minutes in Three Sentences: Salt and Pepa jump onboard to do a public-service announcement and performance of “Let’s Talk About Sex” for the fifteenth anniversary of Lifebeat, an organization that partners with the music industry to fight AIDS. While Salt is busy recording Christian rap and getting her kids ready for school, Pep volunteers to single-handedly orchestrate the show, reinventing the definition of hot mess in the process. Four half-naked dancers and a completely unprepared band later, Salt regains a little artistic control in time for the final talk about sex.
Disowning the Shoop: Pep has a vision of entering the stage from above in the vessel of a six-foot condom. She scours a Manhattan sex shop for the Holy Grail of rubbers, describing it to a confused attendant (”I want it to be like ‘
Protect Yourself!’ “). The sex shop employee instead offers Pep a Magnum XL. Not quite. When Pepa calls Salt with her jumbo-sized-protection woes, Salt brings safe sex and Pepa back down to earth. (”That’s unnecessary, a giant condom. We don’t need that.”) The two compromise by showering the audience with some free contraceptives at the end of their performance. Salt also takes issue with the choreography, which stemmed from Pep’s director’s description of needing more sexy, and wanting “kittens onstage.” After some spanking scandalizes Salt during rehearsal, Pep tells the dancers to take the seduction down a notch with just a booty shake instead: “We don’t have to
hit the butt.”
Whatta Band: In the end, Pepa’s burlesque revolution trims down to a simple one-track charity performance. They change one of the hooks to “Let’s talk about AIDS” and Pepa was able to let go of her dream of smoke machines, glitter, under-sized dresses and giant condoms, and even the band itself. But in a rare moment of praise, Salt gives kudos to the beautiful mind of Pepa and her drive to make the ridiculous real. And Salt-N-Pepa once again reunite just in time to discuss the “do’s and don’ts” to keep shooping safe for America.
Pushin’ It Forward: The two are still only doing bare-boned one-song performances, with Salt dragging behind Pepa’s drive. But Salt may have caught the recording bug, and was working on Christian rap material with her husband in her home studio. (Question: If Sandy and Cheryl can barely coexist in wide-open spaces, how would they handle a studio?) But even if resuscitating old hits is all the girls want to do, we don’t think we mind. “Push It” is still somewhere in their arsenal. If only Pep can convince Salt the song really is about a dance move. Next week the girls and the kids go down to Louisiana to protest racism with Reverend Sharpton.
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