The massive success of "Baby Got Back" may have earned Sir Mix-a-Lot the dreaded "one-hit wonder" label, as well as an appearance on VH1's "Where Are They Now?," but the Seattle native has always been a much more interesting and important figure than his reputation would suggest. One of the first rappers outside of New York and L.A. to score significant chart success, Mix-a-Lot's music is generally a lot more irreverent and tongue-in-cheek than people give him credit for, the work of a chubby studio geek living out his most ridiculous playboy fantasies on wax. "Baby Got Back" may be the song that put Sir Mix-a-Lot on the map, but it's actually one of the album's weaker tracks. Far better is Mack Daddy's first single, "One Time's Got No Case," a song that finds Mix-a-Lot addressing standard hip-hop subject matter in a novel fashion, striking out against racist police officers not through gunplay or violence but by handing the guilty parties a righteous legal smackdown in a court of law. The rest of Mack Daddy charts a similarly cheeky cruise through the not-so-mean streets of Seattle, with Mix-a-Lot addressing such vital subject matters as the nefarious proprietors of fake designer merchandise at swap meets ("Swap Meet Louie") and the importance of not getting whipped by opportunistic females ("Sprung on the Cat"). It's all extremely silly stuff, made even more so by Mix-a-Lot's nasal flow and knack for ridiculous double entendres: "Yo baby, I got a big snake, all you gotta do is make it dance" is a typically subtle Mix-a-Lot come-on. But damn if isn't infectious, funky, and downright fun, making Mack Daddy one of the premiere hip-hop guilty pleasures of the '90s.
© Nathan Rabin /TiVo