Why We Picked This

Alexandra Berenson, Head of A&R: It should come as no surprise to any RHH subscriber that we love featuring woman-identified MCs. I think it’s our responsibility to highlight great rap records made by women because they are great. I’m not necessarily saying they’re not taken as seriously because the artists are women, but I don’t think that helps. I think if we’re going to do a rap and hip-hop subscription, we do have a responsibility to highlight these records, especially when they’re fucking awesome, like all the ones we pick!

This one came up in our music meeting from a staff member, who realized it hadn’t been reissued since it came out. The Music Team checked it out, and realized: Very Necessary has some incredible fucking songs on it! “Shoop” is a banger, “What a Man” is a banger. Even in ’93, it was pretty groundbreaking for Salt-N-Pepa to rap about sex, and AIDS, and records like these became top-five charting singles that were played everywhere, and are still part of the cultural zeitgeist! I think it’s really easy for some folks to play this off as just another pop record, but there’s so much more here, and I think it’s worth celebrating.

Package Details

Very Necessary is 2LP, standard weight on clear-and-black (or Salt-N-Pepa) marbled vinyl. It looks beautiful. This album was a DMM cut because it wasn’t recorded to tape. There’s also a “Shoop” stencil!