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.
Ever wonder what will happen during the last five minutes of late-night TV talk shows? Here are tonight’s notable performers:
Sir Mix-A-Lot: It is obvious a child needs both parents, but it seems the press spends too much time (when it comes this issue) picking the worst examples of children from single-parent households, then they blame the lack of a father for all of the kids’ actions. I agree a father is extremely important (especially when it comes to a boy) in a full and rounded development of a child. But we need to give more of these hard-working single mothers credit for being mothers, fathers and providers. Talk more about the success stories of children from single-parent households and put these deadbeat dads in perspective. Absentee fathers should no longer be studied and analyzed. They should be called for what they are: garbage. How can a man who has been given the gift of a child—a walking, talking mini-version of himself—merely walk away and leave the mother alone to raise their child? Even if you don’t get along with mom, your kid needs you. You fucking bitch.