In 1985, Roxanne Shante released Roxanne’s Revenge, a searing response<\/a> to rap group UTFO’s 1984 hit Roxanne, Roxanne, the 14-year-old clapping back with a devastating mix of confidence and sass.<\/p>\n Noticing the attention it received, two fellow young New York women, Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, tried a similar tack.<\/p>\n Double J \u2014 a place for music lovers<\/a><\/p>\n Double J gives you the new music you’ll actually love, alongside the classic tracks you keep coming back to. Give your playlist a rest and join us here.<\/p>\n As Super Nature, they recorded The Show Stoppa, in response to Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick’s song The Show.<\/p>\n “That was how women kind of got their recognition back then,” James, aka Salt, tells Double J’s Hau Latukefu.<\/p>\n “We ain’t have no beef with [Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick] for real, but we saw Roxanne Shante do it, so we was like, ‘Oh, we could do that. They’re gonna pay attention if we do that.’ It caused a lot of controversy.”<\/p>\n It also opened a lot of doors. Not just for James and Denton, but for a string of women who would come after them.<\/p>\n Super Nature soon became Salt-N-Pepa, who alongside DJ Spinderella would become one of the first all-female rap groups to achieve mainstream success and prove women belonged at the centre of hip-hop.<\/p>\n The moment it became real<\/p>\n The group would go on to make some of the most enduring hip-hop of the 80s and 90s, with hits like Push It, Shoop, Let’s Talk About Sex and Whatta Man still staples of the genre today.<\/p>\n But that first track started it all. After countless accolades, its success still means the world.<\/p>\n Salt-N-Pepa’s Very Necessary was the sound of a confident group revelling in who they were<\/a><\/p>\n Very Necessary is the essence of a group joyfully owning and occupying\u00a0the distinctiveness of their identities.<\/p>\n “We just wanted to hear our song on the radio,” James, aka Salt, says.<\/p>\n Their producer, Hurby Luv Bug, sent the Salt-N-Pepa recording to DJ Marley Marl, the only man who could get the song out to the hip-hop-loving public.<\/p>\n “You could only hear hip-hop for 2 hours on the weekend, so everybody was tuned in,” Salt recalls. “You just wanted to hear this new music.”<\/p>\n The women jumped in Denton, aka Pepa’s, car, a beat-up yellow Datsun with a hole in its floor, and cruised the streets with Marley Marl’s show blaring through the radio.<\/p>\n “Then the record comes on and we go crazy,” Salt says.<\/p>\n “Pep puts it in park in the middle of the boulevard. She jumps out the car. She’s going, ‘They’re playing my song on the radio!’<\/p>\n “I swear, with all the accolades, all the awards, the Grammys \u2014 Salt-N-Pepa got them all at this point \u2014 that moment for me still remains the most exhilarating moment. Because that’s when we knew this was really going to be something.”<\/p>\n Salt-N-Pepa were a dominant force in hip-hop in the 80s and 90s. (Getty: Michael Ochs Archives)<\/p>\n It became something enormous. Tens of millions of records sold, countless world tours, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and their 2025 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n “The reason that you even know Missy Elliott’s name is because of Salt, Pepa, and Spinderella,” Missy Elliott said when inducting the group.<\/p>\n “They are the bricklayers, the foundation that hip-hop stands on.”<\/p>\n There’s an endurance to their success too, which on one hand speaks to the timeless nature of the music and its subject matter.<\/p>\n Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n But Salt reckons the quality of their material is only one part of the secret to their long-term success.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I be taking breaks sometimes,” she says frankly. “Every time I take a break, it ups the ante.<\/p>\n “You can’t saturate the market. You gotta step away sometimes. You can’t just be out there!<\/p>\n “But every time I do take a break and come back, it’s like the floodgates just fly open. All of a sudden, we’re back in the 90s and we’re doing all the things.<\/p>\n “We’re trying to keep up at this point. But it feels amazing: it’s the people, it’s really the fans. It’s real love for Salt-N-Pepa out there.”<\/p>\n Built to last<\/p>\n Salt-N-Pepa shaped the musical tastes of many, and they did it as underdogs.<\/p>\n It’s hard to imagine now, but in the 80s and 90s, Salt-N-Pepa weren’t just focused on whether a female hip-hop group would have staying power. They were wondering whether hip-hop could survive as an art form.<\/p>\n “That era [was] a challenging the time for hip-hop. [We were] wondering if it would last,” Pepa says. “We were celebrating 10 years, 20 years \u2026”<\/p>\n While they were flying the flag for the music that spoke to them, Salt-N-Pepa weren’t always offered the reciprocal respect such a pivotal force in the popularisation of the genre deserved.<\/p>\n “We were getting flak back in the day,” Pepa says.\u00a0<\/p>\n “They used to call us pop. We were sellouts when we was getting hit records. Now everybody wants to be popular, right?”<\/p>\n No matter what naysayers might have said, the truth was in the material and the way audiences responded. In Australia alone they released over a dozen charting singles, four of them reaching the top five on the ARIA charts.<\/p>\n And while Salt-N-Pepa’s songs are undeniably of their time, they have aged well.<\/p>\n A beginner’s guide to women in hip-hop<\/a><\/p>\n From Queen Latifah to BARKAA, here are some of the female rappers who have brought their own flavour to a male-dominated scene.<\/p>\n Supplanting the machismo from sexualised hip-hop, the women rapped about female desire through a lens of safety and body positivity.<\/p>\n “It’s so memorable for us when [people] tell us we were the soundtrack to their lives. It means a lot,” Pepa says.<\/p>\n It turned out to be exactly what people were looking for.<\/p>\n More than 40 years on from their formation, and with over 15 million album sales, James and Denton keep the Salt-N-Pepa legacy alive.<\/p>\n This November they return to Australia for the first time in eight years, playing shows with fellow era-appropriate superstars Boyz II Men and Bell Biv DeVoe.<\/p>\n Demand has been rampant, with most shows sold out, and comment sections are packed with fans excited to reconnect with such a formative musical presence in their lives.<\/p>\n “It makes us feel like we’re such a part of people’s history,” Salt says. “It helps us to understand the impact.”<\/p>\n Salt-N-Pepa start their Australian tour in Perth on November 26, before shows in Sydney, Geelong, Hunter Valley and Brisbane.<\/p>\n Join Hau Latukefu for a massive hip-hop-fuelled party on The Block Party, Friday evenings from 7pm on Double J, or any time on ABC listen<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Salt-N-Pepa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/aae77bdede49c13477afc4c3fc2080d4.jpeg\")
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