The interracial romance-thriller The Bodyguard, starring Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, was the 13th biggest movie of 1992-a feat that had more than a little to do with the film’s soundtrack, which featured Houston delivering six superbly written and produced tracks at the pristine peak of her vocal superpowers. Salt-N-Pepa just happened to get there early. Blige’s “I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By” weren’t far away. More than that, though, hip-hop was beginning to thaw to the idea of incorporating R&B and pop: Puff had convened Bad Boy Records in 1993, and genre-shifting cuts like Method Man and Mary J.

But in the wake of the so-called “ Year of the Woman,” their career-long pop sensibilities congealed in the hits “Shoop” and the En Vogue-featuring “Whatta Man,” positive anthems that remain stalwart in the wedding and auntie playlists. They didn’t change up their raison d’etre: Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella were still committed to women determining their own futures and calling out creepers and weirdos. Salt-N-Pepa were a rebuke to the music industry’s storied disdain for women rappers, having gone platinum on their first two records by their fourth album Very Necessary, which quickly went multi-platinum, the trio could not be denied.

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