1988: American hip hop trio Salt-N-Pepa (Cheryl James, Cheryl Wray, Sandra Denton. Photograph by BSR Company/Light Look through Getty Photographs)
Expensive Salt-N-Pepa,
We’re toasting to you Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella, our latest Rock and Roll Corridor of Famers! Thanks for reminding the world what it seems like when girls in hip-hop take their rightful place in historical past.
Earlier than any of us knew what confidence seemed like, it already had your rhythm.
You girls have been the beat behind each lady who realized to stroll right into a room like she owned it, the echo that informed us our voices may transfer crowds lengthy earlier than algorithms ever did.
I grew up listening to “Push It” and “Shoop” within the background of my childhood, songs that felt like sunshine in a speaker. My mother would gentle up each time they got here on. After I informed her I used to be writing a love letter to Salt-N-Pepa, she smiled earlier than I may even end the sentence. To her, you have been greater than music. You have been a mirror, proof that Black girls could possibly be daring, stunning, and answerable for their very own narrative.
(L-R) Sandra Denton aka Pepa, DJ Spinderella and Cheryl James aka Salt carry out onstage throughout the 2025 Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame Induction Ceremony at Peacock Theater on November 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Photograph by Theo Wargo/Getty Photographs for RRHOF.
“They completely impacted my life and my type in highschool,” she informed me. “They’re the rationale I began carrying ripped denims with leather-based jackets. Me and my mates made dance routines at events due to them. They only made being a lady in hip-hop cool.”
Her tales painted the image of what you meant to her era, girls being seen, heard, and overvalued on the identical time.
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Proudly owning Voice Earlier than the Mic Was Prepared
Whenever you informed us to “Push It,” you weren’t simply speaking about music, you have been speaking about chance.
Salt-n-Pepa, carry out in Stadthalle, Fürth, Stadthalle, Germany, November 1988. Supply: Bernd Mueller / Getty
You flipped sexuality from taboo to instrument, selecting company as an alternative of apology. “Shoop” wasn’t simply flirtation, it was freedom.
In line with the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, your 2025 induction celebrates a bunch that “broke boundaries for ladies in hip-hop and redefined popular culture.”
However for these of us who got here after, it’s deeper than the plaques and performances. It’s the arrogance that discovered its manner into our reflection each time we mentioned one thing out loud that scared us, and did it anyway.
Your confidence turned a blueprint we examine in actual time each time Megan Thee Stallion spits a verse that calls for respect, when Cardi B raps like she owns her story, or when Latto reminds us that confidence can coexist with femininity and finesse.
Crossing Over and Kicking Doorways Down
You didn’t simply change the sound of hip-hop, you modified what womanhood regarded like inside it.
In line with Cornell College’s Preserving Hip-Hop Historical past Mission, you entered an area constructed for males and turned it right into a motion for all of us. When the mic felt heavy with competitors, you lifted it with confidence. You made success look potential and energy look pure. In WERs, y’all are stamped as the primary all-female rap act to go gold, then platinum, and the primary to win a Grammy for Finest Rap Efficiency by a Duo or Group.
But it surely wasn’t simply the music; it was the mirror you held as much as the tradition. Vogue recollects the way in which your vogue informed its personal story, from outsized eight-ball leather-based jackets and color-blocked tracksuits to thigh-high boots that dared to combine streetwear with sensuality. Essence captured it finest, describing bamboo earrings, cropped leather-based jackets, daring haircuts, and an aura that made confidence an adjunct.
Each look was a lyric. Each jacket, each curl, each shoulder pad mentioned we belong right here. You weren’t asking for area, you have been designing it. You didn’t simply cross over, you crossed boundaries; doing it with a smile that mentioned, “watch us.”
You reminded girls that being seen was not the identical as being outlined, and that our visibility could possibly be our victory. Via your voice and your imaginative and prescient, you made being female in hip-hop an influence transfer, not a compromise.
The Enterprise Earlier than the Bag
Earlier than “model offers” had hashtags, you have been negotiating excursions, shaping pictures, and proudly owning the sort of affect we now measure in clicks. You confirmed that ladies may lead in boardrooms as simply as they led on stage.
Contemplate this: a Pitchfork examine of widespread music discovered that solely 12.3% of hip-hop and rap songs between 2012 and 2019 have been carried out by girls. One other report from Billboard famous that throughout a 12-year pattern, girls artists have been least prone to work in hip-hop at simply 14.9%. The sphere you entered was clearly structured for males, however you confirmed up anyway.
The panorama nonetheless isn’t equal. In line with the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative on the College of Southern California, girls held solely 18.9% of songwriter credit and simply 5.9% of producer credit in 2024, proof that the enterprise aspect stays overwhelmingly male-dominated. But artists like you might be a part of the rising legacy shifting these numbers, paving the way in which for a future the place girls gained’t simply take part in hip-hop—they’ll outline it.
Your boldness informed a whole era that being outspoken didn’t imply being misplaced. In an business that always income from our picture however fears our voice, you proved that authenticity pays. Each contract a lady inventive indicators, each product line they launch, each entrepreneurial leap they take, all of it traces again to the ladies who made it okay to say, “I should receives a commission for this.”
Signed with Love, From the Era You Raised
You taught us that confidence could possibly be choreography, that friendship could possibly be a enterprise mannequin, and that femininity was by no means fragile: it was fireproof.
In order you stand within the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame, know that your rhythm nonetheless pulses by means of ours.
With love, gratitude, and the identical gold-chain confidence you handed us,
MadameNoire
P.S.: Glad belated birthday to Sandra “Pepa” Denton!
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