Twenty-five hot summers ago, Juvenile threw out a command and booties everywhere have never been the same. That’s when “Back That Azz Up,” the second single from the New Orleans rapper’s album “400 Degreez,” was released and almost instantly became the national anthem of twerking — before the word even entered the American vocabulary.
Arguments can be made that the song is misogynistic, endearing or both. But the track — built around Juvenile hypnotically rapping the song’s title instruction, a raunchy verse from its producer, Mannie Fresh, and a syrupy outro from an ascendant, teenage Lil Wayne — has definitely proven to have staying power.
Juvenile, 49, initially doubted the song would succeed as a single, and it took a last-minute trip to Nashville’s Music Row to finish the recording. Ultimately, the song helped usher bounce music, the New Orleans branch of hip-hop featuring fast beats and call-and-response chants, into the mainstream while strengthening the South as an epicenter of hip-hop. In interviews, the artists and key figures behind the song explained how it all came to be. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.
JUVENILE I sung the “Back that Azz Up,” hook, probably half a year, about five, six months knowing that I was working on my album.
MANNIE FRESH I heard the lyrics first. I was just like, “You know what? This is already magical.” So the beat got to marry it.
JUVENILE Me, as a solo artist, I just wanted to have that difference.
MANNIE FRESH I took it apart maybe two or three times, where I was just like, “Nah, that’s not it.” And then it finally kind of clicked. I was like, “This one deserves an intro. It deserves an outro. Some breaks that girls can move to, and some elements of classical music, some elements of hood.”
DINO DELVAILLE (UNIVERSAL A&R) Fresh came up with this bounce beat, very reminiscent of what was happening in New Orleans at that time and what’s still happening there.
JUVENILE It was just only right to put something like that on the album because people want to hear that New Orleans sound.
MANNIE FRESH The world hadn’t been introduced to bounce yet, but I’m like, “How do I make this go across everywhere: white, Black, Hispanic, so all of them elements was in it?” So, I was like, “Well, what if we start off with a buildup, so it gives you a chance to get to the dance floor.”
JUVENILE Me and Mannie Fresh kept going back and forth with it. It was one of them songs where he would change the beat and I changed the whole song. To be honest, the only thing that stayed the same was “Back That Azz Up.” That was always the hook.
MANNIE FRESH I think the best thing that could have happened was us finishing the last part of it in Tennessee. A lot of it came just naturally because we kind of never recorded out our element.
JUVENILE When we got to Nashville, we knew we had to turn the song in the next day. Wayne was in the studio and Wayne was like, “I got to be on it.” He kicked a little chant to me that he had at the end of the song, which is some straight New Orleans [expletive], and we just had to put him on there. He wasn’t going to be denied, to be honest.
MANNIE FRESH Just hearing that last part of it, he was like, “I know this is going to be something special.”
JUVENILE I didn’t hear it until my listening party in New Orleans because you got to remember, back in those days, we wasn’t using emails or streaming or Dropbox, nothing. You had to really be in the studio when they playing it to hear it. So, I actually didn’t hear the song until we had promotional copies to give to the press that came down there for my release party.
MANNIE FRESH I knew the world was ready to hear something completely different.
JUVENILE When I first heard it, I didn’t like it because it was different. He still changed the music again. It was different from what I rapped to. Us as artists, we want things to stay the same. After we walk out the studio, we expect it to stay the same. And it took me a minute. It really did. It took me a minute for it to grow on me.
MANNIE FRESH If it would’ve just been raunchy bounce the way it was in New Orleans, no, it wouldn’t have came across.
DELVAILLE When we first got the record, we sent it back and we said, “Listen, everyone loved the record in the office, but we need to figure out a way to do the clean version.”
ANGELA CHARLES (NEW ORLEANS Q93 PERSONALITY AND PROGRAMMER) It’s funny because we still have a radio version that says “Back That Azz Up” — a-z-z, that we can kind of get away with and it’s acceptable.
DELVAILLE Back then, we would just use a sound effect or mute out the bad part. But they came with “Back That Thang Up” and we just knew, OK, this is the one to roll out.
CHARLES Every other request, folks calling in, “I want to hear ‘Back That Thang Up,’ ‘Back That Thang Up.’” It just became, “That’s New Orleans, that’s us. And we want to hear it. I don’t care how many times you play it, play it in rotation, play it on the mix show, play it when we are doing a live gig.”
JUVENILE I went to the clubs around the city the first weekend when the album came out, and I got that real reaction every time it came on. The same reaction I’m getting right now. Women going crazy, shaking that ass everywhere. Everywhere. Old women, young women, big women, skinny women.
DELVAILLE We wanted to lead this with a video and we thought that getting him performing in New Orleans at a concert, capturing that whole bounce element was the best way to roll that record out.
CHARLES It was at a park, A.L. Davis Park uptown, Central City, New Orleans, and it was mayhem.
MANNIE FRESH Every time we would do a scene and the director would show it back, I would be like, “OK, nobody not going to believe this is New Orleans.” It’s like, “We really living like this.” After it came out, people was like, “Well, where did you all get the props from and how did you all get the dog?” I’m like, “That’s real life in New Orleans.”
“Back That Azz Up” peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, hardly reflecting its longevity or popularity. The track received renewed attention after Juvenile included it in his Tiny Desk Concert appearance last year. Artists like Drake, Beyoncé and even Lil Wayne have sampled the song that’s a staple at backyard barbecues and memorable weddings. Many, like the “Abbott Elementary” principal Ava (played by Janelle James), find it simply irresistible.
JUVENILE They done took it to another level. Twerking, it’s part the culture now. Just enjoy it.
LESLIE SEGAR (HOST, BET’s “RAP CITY”) Even though we had the Lil’ Kims and the Foxy Browns doing their version of their female sexual empowerment, this was even accepted in a sense among the adults of our community.
JUVENILE The women keep it going, really. It’s one of those songs that they play at wedding receptions, bar mitzvahs, family events, family reunions. It’s just that song that get everybody going.
CHARLES For a female, “Back That Azz Up,” that’s the theme song. That’s, “You know what? I know I’m looking good and I want to get out on the floor, and I want to show everybody what I’m working with.”
SEGAR It brought people together, even if it’s what’s considered unacceptable ratchetness, it was acceptable. Even till this day, you might see your Uncle Joe or Pookie and them just be like, “Ah, this is it.” I don’t think they’re going to leave the spades table for it, but they’ll be partying in their seats and it’ll still be one leg up while they’re at the table.
JUVENILE I was at an award show, walking by and seeing all these greats sitting there like Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston. But I see Patti LaBelle and Patti LaBelle recognizes me and she grabbed me and said, “I listen to your song when I work out. It’s an inspiration for me. Your song inspires people to work out. It gets me going.”
MANNIE FRESH It’s the greatest love song ever wrote. We was at the right place in the right time in the universe and everything aligned. It’s just one of them songs that it ain’t going nowhere.
The post The Booty-Shaking Anthem That Still Endures, 25 Years Later appeared first on New York Times.
