Sir Mix-A-Lot may forever be linked to 1992 mega-hit “Baby Got Back,” but you’d be off-base in labeling him a one-hit wonder. One of hip hop’s ultimate DIY practitioners, he was a platinum-selling artist long before “Baby Got Back” introduced suburbanites everywhere to the glories of the big, bad booty. He founded his own record label, produced his own tracks, created a Seattle hip-hop scene from scratch and was among the first hip-hop acts to collaborate in the rock genre. These days, he is working on a new album due out next year and generally surveying a scene hugely influenced by the music he created two decades ago. Sir Mix will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all this week. Read our Q&A with him.
Sir Mix-A-Lot: How intelligence is determined has always seemed weird to me. In this country, it seems to me that if you have a good memory, you are considered intelligent. You can remember the answers you’ve been taught when you take your test, but does that mean you are smart? You can remember the Constitution word for word, so does that make you a great politician? You can quote the Bible, but does that make you a good Christian? We say we are teaching our children to prepare them for the future, but are we? So is a kid who leaves college because he has this crazy idea of computers in every household and becoming the richest man in the world stupid? Why in the world do we send these mixed signals? We encourage kids to spend thousands of dollars going to school, but we seem to diffuse their ambition with feel-good comments like “It ain’t all about the money” or “Money can’t make you happy.” These corny comments sound great until the rent comes due. Ambition seems to have taken a back seat to blaming someone else for your problems. Ideas don’t come from people who can memorize a classical-music score. Ideas come from people with vision and independence.
