Push It — Salt-N-Pepa
A B-side, a San Francisco DJ’s remix and a radio hit nobody planned: how Push It turned Salt-N-Pepa into stars and became a dance floor staple.
- Recorded by Salt-N-Pepa (Cheryl James and Sandra Denton), produced by Hurby Azor.
- First released in 1987 as the B-side of “Tramp” on Next Plateau.
- Cameron Paul’s remix made it a hit: No. 19 in the US, No. 2 in the UK, Grammy-nominated.
“Push It” was never meant to be the single. Salt-N-Pepa’s song sat on the B-side of “Tramp” in 1987 until a remix by San Francisco DJ Cameron Paul got it on the radio. That version became the group’s first big hit, and it has stayed on dance floors ever since.
From Sears to Next Plateau
Cheryl James and Sandra Denton met while working at a Sears store in Queens, New York; both were nursing students at Queensborough Community College. A co-worker, Hurby Azor, was studying music production and had them record a song for a class project. He renamed the duo Salt-N-Pepa, and they signed with Next Plateau Records in September 1985. Their first album, Hot, Cool & Vicious, came out in December 1986, produced by Azor, without “Push It” on it.
The B-side and the remix
“Push It” came out in 1987 as the B-side of the “Tramp” 12-inch. Azor produced it and shares the writing credit with Ray Davies, because the song borrows a line from The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”. Its whispered vocal comes from Coal Kitchen’s 1977 recording “Keep on Pushin’”, and it lifts phrases from James Brown’s “I’m a Greedy Man” and “There It Is”.
The 7-inch carried a remix by Cameron Paul, a DJ and producer from San Francisco. His version was the one radio played, and it gave the group their first mainstream hit. Once it took off, Hot, Cool & Vicious was reissued with “Push It” added and with remixes replacing the album versions of “Tramp” and “Chick on the Side”.
Charts and awards
“Push It” peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1988. In the UK it first stalled at No. 41, then re-entered after the group performed at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute and climbed to No. 2 in July 1988. It went gold in the US in 1988 and platinum in 1989, and was nominated for Best Rap Performance at the 31st Grammy Awards. Hot, Cool & Vicious went platinum too, making Salt-N-Pepa the first female rap act to get there. Record Mirror made the single its Single of the Week, crediting the group with enough energy “to put life into a stuffed chimpanzee”.
Why it works in a house set
The remix turned a hip-hop B-side into a dance record, and dance lists still claim it: VH1 put it 37th among its 100 Greatest Dance Songs in 2000, and Slant Magazine ranked it 31st among the best dance songs of all time in 2020. Rolling Stone placed it 446th on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2011. It sits well next to Chicago’s “Jack Your Body” by Steve “Silk” Hurley and the dance-rap of “Good Vibrations” by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.
FAQ
Who remixed Push It?
San Francisco DJ and producer Cameron Paul. His remix, on the 7-inch single, was the radio version that gave Salt-N-Pepa their first mainstream hit.
Was Push It a B-side?
Yes. It first came out in 1987 as the B-side of the “Tramp” 12-inch on Next Plateau.
What does Push It sample?
The whispered vocal comes from Coal Kitchen’s 1977 “Keep on Pushin’”. It also borrows a line from The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”, which earned Ray Davies a writing credit, and phrases from two James Brown songs.
