I’m not joking. I am talking about Stanley “MC Hammer” Burrell, one of the most mocked and battered rappers of all time.
I was 11-years-old when his major-label debut album, “Let’s Get It Started” dropped in 1988. Four years earlier, I’d immigrated from South Korea to the United States.
I was living in Ithaca, NY where there were no radio stations that played Black music (the term “urban music” wasn’t the norm just yet). WICB, Ithaca College’s radio station, had a show on Saturdays where they played R&B and hip hop. Other than that, the only ccess I had to it was via MTV but it was mostly BET that delivered the goods.
After school, I’d tune into Rap City with my VHS cassette ready to record my favorite videos. If you’re around my age, you remember. If you’ve had the Internet all your life then you have no idea. I would tape music vids so I could re-watch them whenever I wanted.
I’m always amazed when I see people list their favorite albums from back in the day cause I know some of y’all be lying. I mean maybe it’s possible that there were 11-year-olds listening to The Smiths and The Geto Boys but I was obsessed with Hammer.
I liked his first single “Let’s Get It Started” but I really went crazy for “Turn This Mutha Out.” He was easy to like. He seemed like a nice guy. And his dancing mesmerized me. His energy was crazy. He was fun. I understood his raps.
When Michael Jackson and Prince were on top of the world I was still adapting to my new life in America. James Brown was before my time. KPop wasn’t even something I could fathom at that time. It was Hammer’s moves that moved me.
1988. 11-years-old. Junior high school dances. Puberty. Hormones. Whatever I lacked in height and wealth (cause the ‘80s were all about the rich, preppy brats), I’d make up in confidence on the dance floor. And MC Hammer was my guide.
No, I never could fully bust out his choreography. Truthfully, I don’t know if I was any good. The level of competition, I imagine, wasn’t all that high.
The most important part was that I danced. Cause at that time, most guys didn’t. They just stood there with their hands in their Bugle Boy pants pockets. And the girls almost always did. So I got to dance with them.
MC Hammer was just the beginning of a more important journey for me though. I’d listened to rap before him but he’s the one who got me hooked on hip hop. He was my gateway. Only a few years later when I was in high school, it would take over my life.
I was the kid who always had the big Sony headphones on listening to Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Brand Nubian, Public Enemy, N.W.A., and more. My parents weren’t crazy about me reading The Source so I subscribed to it and had it sent to my boy Yen’s house. I told everyone that my dream was to write for The Source one day. Which, I know, must have sounded crazy at that time.
I’d borrow books from the library about the history of hip hop as well as the Civil Rights and Black Power activists that rappers mentioned in their songs but whom I’d never learned about in school.
I have no shame in admitting that I enjoyed his acts like Oaktown 357, B Angie B, and Special Generation as well. At one point, I even had a poster of MC Hammer on my wall. Got it from Spencer’s from the mall. The only poster of a rapper I’ve ever bought.
Hammer’s impact on me was profound but didn’t last long. As I got more into hip hop, I’d learned that Hammer wasn’t cool, he “wasn’t hittin’.” I was 13 when “Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt’Em” and “U Can’t Touch This” took over the world. I enjoyed it until one day Gabe, a cool double sport athlete at school, told me he was corny. Being cool and being accepted mattered more to me by then.
So I turned on Hammer.
He was a sellout. I laughed when 3rd Bass beatdown his lookalike in the video for “Gas Face.” I don’t remember when but I replaced the poster of Hammer with a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X shaking hands. When Hammer declared bankruptcy I didn’t feel bad for him.
After I graduated from Cornell in 1998, I worked at Blaze, a recently launched hip hop publication from Vibe that was supposed to compete directly against The Source. Minya Oh aka Miss Info, who was an editor at Vibe at the time, sent me down to Atlanta to interview rappers for a photoshoot featuring artists who appeared on “We’re All in the Same Gang” and “Self Destruction.”
I was nervous as hell. I barely had any experience interviewing anyone and my task was to talk to some of the biggest legends of hip hop: Big Daddy Kane (who was annoyed by my amateur questions), King Tee, JJ Fad, Kool Moe Dee, and more.
But I was most excited to interview the rapper whose image hung on my wall during my pre-teen years.
I wanted to tell him what he’d meant to me. How, in so many ways, I was there as a hip-hop journalist because of his music. How he opened a portal that would change my life. And how his infectious dancing gave me the confidence to express myself at my junior high dances.
I was 21, trying to play it cool, didn’t want to come off as a groupie, it didn’t seem professional. Didn’t want to let Minya down either. So none of that was said. I just did my job.
I wish, for just that moment, I could have just been a fan.
* I previously mistakenly mentioned 3rd Bass’ “Pop Goes the Weasel” video featuring a beatdown of an MC Hammer lookalike but that happened in “Gas Face.” It was Vanilla Ice who got beatdown in “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Shout out to Brandon for the fact check. Also, why so violent Serch and Pete?