Sir Mix-a-Lot responds to Blake Lively "Baby Got Back" criticism
"Baby Got Back" rapper Sir-Mix-a-Lot would like the world to know that he still very much likes big butts -- including Blake Lively's.
The former "Gossip Girl" set off a firestorm of social media criticism earlier this week when she posted a pair of photos of herself from the front and the back along with the caption, "L.A. face with an Oakland booty," quoting Sir Mix-a-Lot's 1992 hit praising sizable posteriors.
The backlash was so loud and widespread, in fact, that Sir Mix-a-Lot himself even got wind of it.
"A friend of mine, he said, 'Dude, I know Katy Perry did this, one of the Kardashians did this, but I don't understand, what did this girl do to make everybody pissed off?'" the rapper told the Hollywood Reporter. "So I checked it out, and looked at it and I was kind of ... I liked it. You know, I like stuff like that, but I was a little surprised at the criticism."
"For her to look at her butt and that little waist and to say 'L.A. face with an Oakland booty,' doesn't that mean that the norm has changed, that the beautiful people have accepted our idea of beautiful? That's the way I took it," Sir Mix-a-Lot said.
"That song was written with African-American women in mind, but trust me when I tell you that there are women out there with those curves everywhere, and they were once considered fat. And that's what the song was about. It wasn't about some race battle."
Also, in case anyone was confused as to exactly what the lyric means, the artist himself is happy to explain. "What I meant by 'L.A.' was Hollywood. In other words, makeup or whatever it took to make that face look good, they do it in L.A. But, as much as you can throw makeup on something, you can't make up the butt," Sir Mix-a-Lot said. "That's what 'L.A. face and Oakland booty' meant. You can put makeup on that face and make it look beautiful, but a butt is a butt, a body is a body."