Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, better known as rap duo Salt-N-Pepa, met as first-year students at Queensborough Community College in New York City. But school was the last thing on their minds.
“We were big time screw-ups,” James told The Guardian. “We never went to class. We’d just hang around in the lunchroom playing cards, and we formed this amazing friendship. Because we were polar opposites, we fascinated each other.”
It was the strength of that yin-and-yang relationship that turned the school friends into a music sensation. The first female rappers to be certified platinum, Salt-N-Pepa are now set to become Rock & Roll Hall of Fame members alongside Cyndi Lauper, Chubby Checker, and others in the 2025 class. The pair will receive the institution’s Musical Influence Award in November.
A key part of Salt-N-Pepa’s influence is the fearless way they dove into topics so seldom talked about. More than three decades after they formed, their music—including hits “Push It,” “Let’s Talk About Sex,” “Whatta Man,” and “Shoop”—still hold their place in history as some of the most innovative sounds and lyrics of their time.
The pair worked at Sears before they were rappers
Before James and Denton were star vocalists, they worked retail jobs in anonymity. The two students took their friendship off-campus, becoming coworkers as part-time telephone operators for Sears department store. They worked alongside future comedian Martin Lawrence and hip-hop duo Kid ’n Play.
During a shift, James’ boyfriend at the time, Hurby Azor, had an idea. “Hurby was a music student, and he was always working on beats and music, and he wanted to produce a song,” James told Rolling Stone in 2017.
He needed a group and thought Denton might be the perfect fit. “I remember him asking me, ‘Can you rhyme?’… at work. At Sears. His desk wasn’t too far from mine, his cubby hole,” she told the music magazine. “I’ve never rapped in front of a crowd, ever in my life. I grew up with park jams. That’s how I knew about rap.”
But Denton went for it and showed off her skills with a couple of lines, such as “I’m Sandy D. from coast to coast.”
“That, to me, was an audition,” Denton said.
Their first song was a diss track
Clearly, Azor saw something in Denton, even if she was still skeptical of performing for an audience. “I just had my little raps that I used to write, but I was nervous, I was scared,” Denton told Rolling Stone. “I always wanted to, but I never did.”
They went to Azor’s attic, and Denton and James recorded their first track in 1985 under the name Super Nature. At the time, rap was all about battles, so even though they were an all-female group trying to break into a male-dominated industry, they decided to take on some of the most established names—Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh—by starting with a bold response song, called “The Show Stoppa (Is Stupid Fresh).”
“That was the best way for us as female rappers to get noticed, which was crazy for us to do because Doug and Slick Rick were the biggest thing ever and ‘The Show’ was the biggest song ever,” James told Vibe. “It was very ballsy for two women that nobody knew to do something like that!”
Eventually, they recorded it again more professionally at Power Play Studios. Azor then took the song to DJ Marley Marl, who had the WBLS radio show World Famous Mr. Magic Rap Attack. “Back then, you could only hear hip-hop on the weekends,” James explained to Rolling Stone. “And [Marl] promised Hurby that he would play the song.”
James and Denton were glued to the radios every weekend, until one day they were driving in Queens down Guy Brewer Boulevard and heard “The Show Stoppa.” James called it “one of the most exciting moments of our career” to Rolling Stone.
“Pep being the crazy person that she is—she stopped the car in the middle of the boulevard, she jumped out of the car, and she started screaming, ‘They’re playing my song! That’s me! That’s me on the radio!’” James recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Get back in the car!’”
But that exposure was exactly what they needed. From there, they started doing local shows just from the one successful single. The bigger the song got, the more they were “bitin’ our nails” waiting for a response from the two established rappers they had called out. “One time we saw them at a club, and they were just really nice to us,” James said.
Denton added: “I remember Doug E. Fresh telling me that Slick Rick was gonna get us, but Doug Fresh said, ‘Ah, let ’em live.’”
Salt-N-Pepa recorded “Push It” in a bathroom
Avoiding a rap beef that could have altered their careers, then 20-year-old Denton and 19-year-old James had found their calling. “We were going to school, we were working at Sears after school, and on the weekends, we were doing shows in Manhattan,” James said.
“Making money wasn’t the goal, nor was the goal being extremely famous,” she later told The Morning Call. “The goal was to entertain, to make good music and to have a good time.”
With their newfound side hustle, they needed a more fitting name than Super Nature. They took a note from their own lyric, “We go together like salt and pepper,” and realized that the name Salt-N-Pepa “felt perfect.” James became “Salt” and Denton “Pepa.”
With their name and airplay established, it seemed like the duo was headed to the top. However, they soon discovered counterfeit versions of their group performing in clubs. They also struggled to get a record deal because rap was still male-dominated.
Eventually, Salt-N-Pepa met Eddie O’Loughlin of indie label Next Plateau, who offered $5,000 for the single “I’ll Take Your Man” and another $9,000 for an album. When the song “Tramp” needed a B-side, they were at the house of Azor’s friend Fresh Gordon.
Gordon developed a riff, Azor wrote lyrics, and the women recorded a track called “Push It” in the bathroom because of the echoes from the room’s tiles. “Pep and I were in there trying to go, ‘Ooh baby baby,’ thinking it was so corny,” James told The Guardian. “The song didn’t make a lot of sense to us, then when we were on tour, a DJ in San Francisco called Cameron Paul flipped ‘Tramp’ over and started playing ‘Push It.’ All the stations followed suit, and it just took off.”
The song launched them into another realm of fame, as it sold more than a million copies, hit No. 20 on Billboard’s pop chart and was nominated for a Grammy. James added, “It’s a very popular song in maternity wards. An aquarium once told us that when they played ‘Push It,’ the sharks started mating.”
Salt-N-Pepa’s debut album, 1986’s Hot, Cool, & Vicious, quickly sold more than a million copies and made them the first female rappers to achieve gold and platinum certification.
They tackled taboo topics in their songs
Salt-N-Pepa continued to grow their reputation and their image, in part by adding 16-year-old Deidra Roper, whose stage name was DJ Spinderella, into the mix. They dove into what seemed like taboo topics by talking about safe sex in “Let’s Talk About Sex” in 1991 and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the bluntly-titled 1993 “I’ve Got AIDS.”
“We were in the era of HIV,” Roper told the Herald-Tribute. “That was a time when no one really was sure how you contracted it. So we used our platform to create discussion and dialogue.”
While their mission might have seemed calculated, it was precisely the opposite. “We came along at a time when female rappers weren’t really having that much commercial success, and we brought fun, fashion, and femininity to hip-hop,” James told The Morning Call. “[We also came out] hitting the heart of a female audience and speaking their truth and stepping out and being as bold as we were with the things that we had to say, the way that we dressed. Being successful in such a male-oriented genre, such a misogynistic genre, I think that women were really hungry for a voice.”
On top of it, they soon had their own children and were traveling the world as working mothers, thinking about the influence they were spreading. “We all have little sisters and cousins who look up to us, and we see what they go through, so we have to be an example,” Denton told Interview. “As you get older—and now that we also have children—your conscience starts working on you. You have to give your fans and your children something they can use in life.”
Their legacy is still celebrated today
While the group did go through their ups and downs, what started as a friendship between two college students has continued to seep its influence on the industry today. “Back then we didn’t think a lot about what we were doing—was very organic,” James said. “And 31 years later, to see Beyoncé dressed up as Salt-N-Pepa on Halloween [in 2016] is just, like, ‘Wow.’ That’s not something that I definitely thought would be happening.”
Salt-N-Pepa received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021 along with artists including Talking Heads, Bonnie Raitt, and Selena. Then on Monday, it was announced the group would join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category. The organization summarized their impact succinctly: “Their undeniably provocative, fresh style and worldwide commercial success broke ground for women in rap.”
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
