Three Dope Queens

Salt N Pepa N Spinderella shlepped up the three flights and I am so glad they did.

You may have thought it was over for Jane Fonda. Barbarella, Klute, Nine to Five, all those iconic roles of hers had come and gone. But then, bam, there she was in that red and black striped leotard, a smart bomb right into the libidinous heart of the eighties. Leg warmers completed the look (the stupidest accessory since shoulder pads). In a perfect confluence of events, spandex fabric technology matured right around the time Dr. Fonda blessed humankind with the invention of aerobics. The theory was, if you donned this skin-tight shiny outfit and danced around in a particular way, your body would end up resembling Jane Fonda’s. Delusion or not, apparently vast numbers of people bought into this plan, had what she was having, and aerobics became ubiquitous. Jane herself said, "We weren't supposed to sweat or have muscles. Now, along with forty other women, I found myself moving nonstop for an hour and a half in entirely new ways."

In New York, this craze reached its apotheosis at Joy of Movement, on Lafayette and East 4th Street, right across from Tower Records. Several times a week, I would don my bike shorts (not entirely sure I want to admit this in print, but I will say I did visit the Capezio store in Times Square around this time and MAY have found myself with cold legs but probably not) and hie up the stairs to an enormous room filled with several-score aerobicians shaking their moneymakers. It was me, occasionally my friend Adam, and like eighty smoking hot spandex-clad women. All gyrating to an overpowering stereo system featuring bass to shake you to your core. Kick-boxing, aerobics, fake-karate, jazz dance, I even enjoyed some yoga classes there, taught by Sharon and David Life, before they started Jivamukti. Throughout all (well, maybe not the yoga) the soundtrack was the beats of the era. But none brought more primal sexual energy to the room than Salt N Pepa.

Photo by Chris X Carroll. Terrific original article by Dinitia Smith here.

Shoop, yeah, yeah, doop doop doop doopa doopa doop. You know you’re shimmying around right now, you can’t even help yourself. What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man. Or Push It, REAL GOOD. There were no better artists for making a room full of shiny terpsichorean lycra scintillate enough to shake the building.

My association of Salt N Pepa with rooms full of women wildly gyrating is fitting. Hip Hop music hosts even fewer women artists than other genres. The success of Salt N Pepa in this extremely macho cultural scene is all the sweeter. When I got the chance to photograph them for the cover of New York Magazine I jumped at the chance.

Rental studios were fun, yet there was something awesome about shooting such amazing artists in my apartment. The artists seemed to like it too, once they caught their breaths from the three long flights of stairs required to ascend to my aerie. Like the fog in Apocalypse Now or the treacherous pass to Shangri-La, those stairs provided a transition between the pedestrian street-level mundanity of Tribeca and the lofty artistic heights of my studio.

L-R, Sandi Denton, Cheryl James, and Dee Roper. Photos by Chris X Carroll

Those stairs also provided a major aerobic challenge many subjects seemed surprised to be asked to endure. Subjects like Salt N Pepa, whose members and entourage burst through the door with such a cacophony of complaints, wheezing, whining, clattering (don’t ask) and predictions of fainting that I thought the shoot might end before it began. Otis Fuentes got in on the act and began loudly barking to complete the chaotic scene. Cheryl James, Sandi Denton and Dee Roper are not known for their reticence. All three of them, and their people, made it loud and clear they were not happy about the goddamn stairs. However, it’s almost like they got it out of their system early or the flight or flight adrenaline faded. Whatever it was, once breaths were caught and refreshments provided, those women got right to work and proved to be amiable and delightful collaborators. I quickly noticed they were calling each other their “real” names and though they’d introduced themselves as the titular artists they preferred Cheryl, Sandi and Dee so that was that.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Salt N Pepa N Spinderella.

The perspicacious reader will note that Salt N Pepa appears to be made up of three people. Like Run-DMC, there are two named artists in the band. But those named artists consider their DJ to be an integral part of the group. Hence, Spinderella. I had been instructed to not only include her in my shots, but pay careful attention to keep her the same size and prominence as the two principals. And so we did. All three artists were fully engaged partners and got right into the spirit of creating a compelling magazine cover. It is, of course, hard work to make things look effortless, but between the three of them, my crew and me and Otis, we nailed it. Fevered entrance and gutterally sensual tracks notwithstanding, the primary mode of Salt N Pepa turned out to be professionalism. Oh, they’re charming and delightful, and surprisingly funny (I suspect they helped with the creative on that Target ad with them mowing the lawn in leather jackets spoofing their own image).

Sure do miss that Joy of Movement. But my ladies from Salt N Pepa and their sick feminist beats are just a click away nowadays. Now, where did those leg warmers get to? I’m thinking I could make a killing on Poshmark.