Happy 24th Anniversary Blacks’ Magic

Twenty four years ago on this day, the Queens of Rap, Salt & Pepa released their third album, Blacks’ Magic. When the album was released group member, Salt, became pregnant with her first son, Tyran Jr and that’s when the HIV/AIDS Epidemic started to become more of an issue in the community.

For the cover of the album, they wanted to pay tribute to those that had a major influence on music and they still continued to work with their manager/producer, Hurby Luv Bug Azor for the album. The singles that were released from the album, were the female anthem “Expressions,” “Do You Really Want Me,” and the safe sex song, “Let’s Talk About Sex.”

They felt that it was appropriate to release the single, “Let’s Talk About Sex” because of the growing cases of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and it started to spread through the African American community. The album charted at number 15 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop charts and #38 on the Billboard charts. The album was also certified platinum.

Since the release of the album, the duo released two more albums before calling it quits with each other. They reunited in the 2000′s with their own reality show and continue to fight against HIV/AIDS. Their single, “Let’s Talk About Sex” was covered by the R&B group, Pretty Ricky for their remix to the single, “Hotline” and in the movie, Pitch Perfect. Female rappers of today’s generation should take notes from these divas as they pioneered for women!

-Matia (@ms_hip_hop)