Salt-N-Pepa ft. En Vogue
Tupac Shakur nearly missed this shoot because he had shot two off-duty police officers in Atlanta the day before. The charges were eventually dropped. He made it to set anyway. "Whatta Man" was built on "What A Man" by Linda Lyndell — a 1968 Atlantic Records soul track written by producer Dave Crawford, who died in 1988 and is credited posthumously as a co-writer. Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor rebuilt it as a hip hop track. En Vogue handled the retro-soul vocals because Salt-N-Pepa themselves were rappers. Director Matthew Rolston structured the video so each member chose her own fantasy man. The women are in charge of the frame. The men are posed and styled as the visual objects. Rolling Stone called it a video that "viewed hip-hop romance through the female gaze and flipped pop music masculinity on its head: here, strong men are the cheesecake." That is the actual structural decision, not an interpretation. Three VMAs in 1994: Best Dance Video, Best R&B Video, Best Choreography. Salt-N-Pepa won the Grammy for Best Rap Performance the following year — the first female rap act to win one. Pepa and Treach later married and divorced; Pepa has publicly alleged abuse in the marriage Salt-N-Pepa performed "Whatta Man" live at WrestleMania XI in 1995 for the Lawrence Taylor vs. Bam Bam Bigelow match — a documented intersection of hip hop and pro wrestling that pre-dates the now-standard pairing by years The song also appears on the soundtrack to Wes Craven's 1996 Vampire in Brooklyn En Vogue did not release another album until 1997's EV3 — "Whatta Man" kept them in the cultural conversation across the gap