Salt, Pepa, Hot sauce soup.

Here I go, here I go, here I go again. Girls, what’s my weakness? MEN! CondiMENts!

Welcome to the inside of my head, where infant me raps in an all-female hip hop group under the moniker “Ketchup” and has the body of a grown woman who wears cool African hats.

Hang on tight.

I have no idea how or why Toronto’s Festival of Beer managed to get the effing Queens of 90s Hip Hop into their entertainment lineup, but I’m going to assume it has everything to do with some random blog post I wrote about Shoop in June.

I swear to Jazzy Jeff that I had no idea Salt-N-Pepa would be coming to Toronto this summer — or even that they were still together — when I wrote that post.

Jul 29, 2012 | Push it. by laurenonizzle on Keek.com

It all went down like this:

I had Googled “Do do that voodoo that you do so well” after reading it in some Vice column or something and stumbled upon the Shoop video. One related video led to another and, before I knew it, I had DL’ed the entire Salt-N-Pepa discography. And I LIKED it.

Typical Millennial, fetishizing 90s culture. You know how it is.

I wasn’t really old enough to appreciate their music fully the first time around (I was two when Push-It was released), but that’s not to say that I don’t know all of their hits’ choruses off by heart.

You do too, because they’ve got mad longevity. They really are classics.

A few short days after making that Shoop post — after spending hours looking at 90s hip hop videos with Sean on the couch — I saw a streetcar go by with an ad for Salt-N-Pepa at beerfest on it.

It felt like fate and I decided to go. I almost missed the entire thing to stay late at work and finish a story, but my timing ended up being flawless and that felt like fate too.

Salt and Pepa’s hype men (called the ‘shakers’ - get it?) were taking the stage just as Casie and I walked through the gates.

We managed to worm our ways through the crowd to the very front of the stage — a practice my friends call ‘Nizzling’, as in:

“This club is at capacity. They’re turning everybody away. Let’s go.”
“Just Nizzle your way in like you always do…”

All is fair in love and access.

Anyhoo, Wikipedia tells me that Salt (Cheryl R. James) and Pepa (Sandra Denton) are 46 and 48 respectively.

That performance was NYUTZ for two women that age. Not only did they kill it vocally and with their moves, the entire performance was just slinky and spicy as heck – Like a big ole bowl of hot sauce soup. Hot sauce shoop!

I should win a bloggy award for that Segue.  Are bloggies still like, a thing?

You know you’re doing “social media” right when your branded Facebook post soars to the top of Reddit. And also when you come up with a joke recipe that actually makes my mouth water.

I’ve got to go outside now. Happy Caturday

P.S. — I would like to publicly declare my love for Dr. Dre, in hopes that he comes to perform within 5 blocks of my place. With Eminem. And Snoop. Come on, come on… OVOfest would count. Just Sayin’