Pop Culture Retrospective Episode #6 - MC Hammer: the backstory behind one of the most determined and hard-working entertainers the world has ever seen!

When you think of the late 1980s and early 1990s when it comes to music, who do you think of?  Most people would probably say Michael Jackson and Madonna who truly defined a generation, but there’s another talented and misunderstood entertainer who  may also come to mind, MC Hammer.  

Me and my sister’s first introduction to music came in the form of records...we had a Fischer Price Record player that we listened to a ton of records on including Disco Mickey Mouse, the Cabbage Patch kids and Rainbow Brite on.  I also fell on said record player flat on my face while jumping on my sister’s gold post bed to the sound of this music which resulted in me having a huge black eye which made me resemble a female, toddler version of Rocky Balboa.  

When we got older we shifted to boom boxes and cassettes.  One cassette that we wore out both in our boom boxes and likely my dad’s car was MC Hammer’s masterpiece, Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, a staple in so many people’s music collections and for many good reasons.  

Whenever MC Hammer has been discussed in the last 10-15 years, it seems the focus is on his outfits and his unfortunate bankruptcy.  There is so much more to his story.  MC Hammer is a man who chose to go down the right path and on the way, he was Relentless and persistent in the pursuit of achieving his dreams.  I have found his story to be incredibly inspiring and so much more than anything I was ever aware of. 

So pull on your high-wasted genie pants and excessive gold jewelry, here we go!

Hello and welcome to the Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast!  This show is dedicated to the memory of my sister, Rebecca and her love for all things pop-culture, especially memories from the 1980s, 1990s and early 00s.  My name is Amy Lewis and I am your host.  Today you are tuning in to episode #7, MC Hammer, an icon of music in the late 80s and early 90s.  On today’s show you will learn all about MC Hammer’s work ethic and how that lead to his unbelievable success.  You will also learn about what led to his decline in popularity and what he has been up to since his days lighting up stages all over the world.

Early Life

• Stanley Kurk Burrell was born on March 30, 1962 in Oakland California
• Grew up in a Public Housing Complex with his 8 other siblings, crammed into a small apartment
• His Mom was a secretary and his dad was a professional poker player and a casino manager, rumor of father being addicted to gambling which led to the family struggling with money 
• 60s and 70s were an incredibly scary time to live in Oakland- cocaine and heroin dealing mainly facilitated by gangs was on a significant incline.  Many forms of crime also increased drastically.  This resulted in the murder rate rising drastically - at one time it was twice as high as New York City or San Francisco.  The Superintendent of Schools in Oakland was assassinated in 1973.  It was rumored that this happened because he wanted the schools to have an identification system in place so that people who were not students (like drug dealers) would not be able to access campus.  He was assassinated by a group called the Symbionese Liberation Army which was a left-wing extremist/terrorist group.
• He would NEVER forget where he came from 
• Loved baseball, kept him out of trouble,  always a fan of Oakland A’s
• Young age was incredible dancer
  • Danced outside the Oakland A’s coliseum to the music and stylings of James Brown - fans going into the stadium were really impressed and his performances often drew crowds 
  • Sometimes the players would see him walking in and would give them passes to the games
  • Soon his dancing skills caught the eye of one time owner, Charles O. Finley - one day Stanley approached him, introduced himself and asked if he could come inside and be his guest.  Finley said yes. 
  • Go on to be a batboy, that’s when he got his nickname from A’s player Reggie Jackson as he bore a striking resemblance to Hank “the Hammer” Aaron.  
  • He would continue to stay connected with the Oakland A’s as he got older, this would prove to be helpful in the pursuit of his dreams
• Eventually Hammer would go on to graduate from high school and enroll at a Community College where he studied communications.  His dream was to play professional baseball but unfortunately that dream didn’t come to fruition so between feeling discouraged about that and not being invested in his studies,so in 1983, he decided to head back home to re-evaluate things.  His parents encouraged him to make a plan for his future, they didn’t want him to go down the path that so many of his childhood friends had.  Drawn to the earning potential, many of his friends got involved in the world of drugs.  Hammer also said that one of his motivations for not getting into a life of crime as his mother- he didn’t want to break her heart.  She had worked so hard to raise him and his siblings that he couldn’t fathom disappointing her.  He decided to enlist in the Navy, he served there for 3 years and was honorably discharged. During his time in the Navy, he wrote rap songs with his roommate.  
• After Navy, formed the rap group Holy Ghost Boys which was a religious-orientated group
  • This group would go on to start developing the song ‘Pray’ that would be one of MC Hammer’s biggest hits, but we’ll get to that later
  • This is when Hammer’s pursuit of being a rapper started to gain some momentum, he wanted to start producing rap albums and he committed to himself that at least one song on any albums he put together would be spiritual in nature, perhaps thanking God, something along those lines
  • Shortly after the Navy, he met his future wife, Stephanie in Church.  She was in town visiting some family and he convinced her to go on a date with him and within 6 months they were married 
• He eventually decided that he wanted to produce his own rap album and start his own record company as he was sort of a struggling artist.  He reached out to two friends he had on the Oakland A’s - outfielders Mike Davis and Dwayne Murphy, he was hoping they could help him with the funds to start this passion project. There’s an endearing story I read about where he sort of invited himself to Mike Davis’s house to pitch his idea.  In front of Davis and his wife, Hammer pushed the table back, showed them his amazing dancing skills and Davis cut him a check right then and there.  
  • Hammer’s debut album - Feel my Power was released in 1987 on his record label.  The label was named “Bust It” records.  
  • Worked TIRELESSLY to sell this album.  He would go to nightclubs, ask the DJ to play it and he would get on the dance floor and showcase his unbelievable and magnetic dance moves.  Other patrons at the club would want to dance next to him to learn his moves because he was so skilled.  I did not read any information that said Hammer ever went to dance lessons, I believe he was self taught.  Part of the reason for him dancing in clubs as well was for him to hone his skills as an entertainer.  
  • He would also weasel himself into Radio Stations to hauk his music.  That resulted in some radio play as well.  
  • He sold his music out of the trunk of his car, eventually sold a 60k
  • One night while out at a dance club, someone from Capital Records happened to be there and heard his music and saw his dance skills and knew this young man was destined for stardom.  She later met with her boss at Capital Records and said we have to sign this guy
    • After some contract negotiations, he eventually signed and his career started to take off.  Some of that negotiation resulted in him getting a 750k bonus!
    • First album with Capitol Records was Let’s Get it Started which was sort of a revised version of Feel my Power.  It was released in 1988 and featured successful hits including “Turn this Mutha Out,” “They Put Me in the Mix,” and “Let’s Get it Started.”  
  • This success was just the beginning……………..
  • 
    

Rise to Fame

• Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em was released in 1990 - proved to be a big year for MC Hammer
  • Featured hit songs such as:  U Can’t Touch this which sampled Rick James’ superfreak and Pray which sampled When Doves Cry by Prince.  
  • It has sold over 18 million copies as of this show.  First album to reach diamond status.  Also includes Dancin’ Machine which was a remake/sampling of the original classic song by the Jackson Five and he also sampled Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye in his song, Help the Children.  
  • The Help the Children video is of course very 90s, but brings a strong message about the senseless violence that can impact and sadly kill young children when they are caught in the crossfire of gun violence.  
  • The Song U Can’t Touch This spent about 6 months on the billboard charts
• Made 33 million off of this album
• Became a household name, December 7th 1990 became MC Hammer day in LA
• A movie also was released that coincided with this album, featured music videos from PHDHE album
  • Memorable music videos: 
    •  U Can’t Touch This:  starts with his name being announced at the grammys.  Features all of our favorite 90s fashions including shoulder pads, signature pants, biker shorts to wear when you are not actually biking, spandex onesies for adults, baseball shirts with A’s logo on it of course, rat tails, gold jewelry and tube televisions (ps you cannot bring these to goodwill anymore!)
    • Pray:  shows MC Hammer walking through what appears to be his old neighborhood or a set resembling his old neighborhood.  In between dance breaks of him dancing in neon green genie pants in front of a fountain or red genie pants in a warehouse, we see him trying to help intervene with some troubled people in his community:  guys gambling, young kids selling drugs and he eventually breaks up a fight between two groups of angry looking men by saying ”we need to pray just to make it today.”  
• He went on a world tour including Europe, Asia, Russia and Australia 
  • He was meticulous about his performances - he was an UNBELIEVABLE performer and dancer.  Described as Electrifying, Spectacular, etc.  In my head I just thought running man, but way more than that.  
  • Treated every performance as it it were his first
  • He would work on dance moves for 8 hours a day as well as run 4 miles - this was the expectation for his dancers as well 
  • He would review tape of his performances to critique it- see what he did well and what he needed to do to improve. 

1991 - was a big year for MC Hammer

• Dropped the MC from his stage name and was now called just Hammer
• he released his next album, 2 Legit 2 Quit and he was under a lot of pressure for this album to live up to the success of the previous album
  • Sold 5 million copies and although that is significant and a huge number, everyone it seemed compared this to his previous album and looked at it as a failure, but 5 million copies is A LOT 
  • Features hit songs such as:  2 L 2 Q, Do Not Pass Me By and This is the Way we Roll
    • Music video for 2 L 2 Q is known for being one of the most expensive mv ever produced, 14.5 minutes long
      • May have to do the with the elevator that goes in an out of burning flames, the dumbbells that a woman uses to workout with, matching letterman jackets, dumpster fire that illuminates a dance break, smoke machines or maybe the special effects, like the sewer cap that blasts off into the sky.  
      • Celebrity cameos:  James Brown - inspiration to Hammer, Deon Sanders, Isaiah Thomas and one of favorite mulleted and roid-raging athletes Jose Canseco.  This is where we learned the 2 L 2 Q hand symbols.  
      • To this day my dad likes to tell everyone, including people he barely knows, that he’s 2 L 2 Q.  I think this pissed my sister off for a good 20-25 years.  

Also in 1991…

• Mattell released the MC Hammer Doll, one came with a little, bedazzled boom box that played (very poorly) some of the beats from U Can’t Touch this.  Another one came with a cassette tape.  I’ll post the commercial in the show notes.
• This time was probably the peak of Hammer’s income and certainly he spent his money on some extravagant stuff
  • He and wife - 10 MIL home, on a hill which overlooked his old neighborhood (he would point to that hill several years before with his wife and told her they would one day live up there).  It featured 1 million dollars worth of marble that was imported from Italy, salt water fish tanks, neon lights and a ton of water features. Also had a bathtub that could seat 8 and spent 68k on mirrors.  
  • Invested about 1 million in horses encouraged by Dad and Brother 
  • He also loved classic cars- individually they didn’t cost a lot but he had, from some reports, 17 cars
  • Sometimes traveled in his own personal airplane
  • The above is a lot of course, but what really did him in was his generosity, at one time he had about 200 employees working with him and that payroll was A LOT of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars each month
    • When he toured, he had about 15 dancers on the stage at a time, as well as 15-20 band members, sometimes there were 50 people on stage at one time
    • All of his dancers and singers came from the inner-city neighborhood that he did.  If he met someone that didn’t have a job, he would hire them to keep them off of the street and pay their salary
    • He ran a tight ship while on tour, there were curfews, bed checks, etc.  He said he didn’t want to have to call up the families of any member of his encourage and tell them something bad happened to their son or daughter a 4am in the morning
    • Even when MC Hammer was not on tour, he still paid their salaries, rent, clothing, etc. he didn’t want them to result to unsafe methods to earn money 
• He got a lot of endorsement deals with several well-known companies
  • Pepsi
  • Taco Bell
  • British Knights
  • Face was on lunch boxes 
• He had a cartoon on Saturday mornings called Hammerman - he got a lot of flak for this, even though his character was one of the few black superheroes.  Granted, the show was horrible and the illustrations were god awful, but still.  
• Between the endorsements and the cartoon, he started being labeled a sell out and started to lose fans left and right.  With all of his endorsement deals though, a certain amount of the money he received from this was utilized for inner city causes, but the cartoon was really the icing on the cake for his fans.  
• Maybe one of the biggest slaps in the face came from the show In Living Color, where Tommy Davidson (did good ones of Sammy David Junior, Stevie Wonder, etc.) who is an incredibly talented comedian impersonated him in his U Can’t Touch This Video - places a lot of emphasis on his genie pants, eventually end up going over his head and he falls off the music video set.  Someone made a comment somewhat recently on the YouTube clip (which I’ll post in the show notes) that said:  “I gotta wear a diaper every time I see this!  Still hilarious!”  I mean, it’s funny, I loved In Living Color and TD, but wow, that’s an interesting comment...ILC had some memorable parodies which will be referenced on future shows.  I’ll post a link to this parody video in the show notes.  
• Gangsta Rap started to become increasingly more popular and MC Hammer was sometimes the subject of ridicule from his “tougher” peers due to his endorsement deals and for making rap music more mainstream or more pop-oriented
  • He was the subject of some insults in lyrics of rap songs from groups such as a Tribe Called Quest and in music videos.  One hip-hop group named 3rd base put aviator glasses on top of a waist high hammer and proceeded to knock it over in one of their music videos.
  • Ice Cube had someone dressed as him in a music video for the song “True to the Game”.  In the first shot the impersonator is dressed in street clothes and then he spins around and is in a sparkly outfit with the classic baggy pants on.  Here are some of Ice Cubes lyrics from the song which definitely appear to be aimed at MC Hammer:
    • When you first start rhyming it started off slow, and then you start climbing
    • But it wasn't fast enough I guess, so you gave your other style a test
    • You was hardcore hip-hop
    • Now look at yourself, boy you done flip-flopped
    • Giving our music away to the mainstream
    • Don't you know they ain't down with the team?
    • They just sent they boss over
    • Put a bug in your ear, and now ya crossed over
    • On MTV, but they don't care
  • Interestingly enough, Ice Cube would eventually also be a “sell out” as there were a number of Coors Light Beer Commercials that he had the starring role in.  I’m not a big drinker but Coors light, yuck! 
  • Hammer wasn’t completely innocent, he also had dis tracks aimed at rappers Redman and Q-Tip from TCQ and made negative comments toward Run DMC. 

• 1992 - went on a 2 Legit 2 Quit Tour
  • Boys II Men opened for him
  • When he returned from the 2 L 2 Q tour he learned that all of his earnings had essentially been wiped out, the decline continued

• Perhaps due to the criticism he was receiving for being a sell out and maybe too squeeky clean, he released an album called The Funky Headhunter in 1994.  He was a bit critical of other rappers on this album and his language was a bit more aggressive compared to other albums.  This album was not nearly as successful as his previous ones.  It generated some relatively popular songs, who could forget Pumps and a Bump?  There was also a song called “It’s All Good” which is where that catchphrase allegedly came from.  He changed up his outfits, traded genie pants for baggie jeans and added a knit cap instead of gold rimmed glasses and more casually danced in timberland boots.  He also had a risque music video for Pumps and a Bump which had him in a speedo, that music video was banned from MTV, they had to make a new one.  This shift really didn’t work for MC Hammer and really went against everything he stood for. 
• He has gone on to release several more albums but the ones he is most known for have already been mentioned.  

In 1996, he filed for bankruptcy.  He was as down and out as he was portrayed in the media, but he was definitely struggling with a lot of debt.  He had to sell his dream home at a loss.  In addition to all of the luxuries and salaries he was paying for, he also got into some trouble for copyright infringement on some of his songs.  All of those cases were settled, but some were at a cost to him or cut his royalties. It seemed as quickly as he rose to fame, he went down almost as fast.  

More recently, MC Hammer has gone on several tours, reconnecting with Boyz II Men and also toured with Vanilla Ice! In 2012, he had a pretty amazing performance with Korean popstar Psy on the American Music Awards.  You may remember Psy had the YouTube hit with Gangnam Style, a dance that many people, including celebrities tried to replicate.  They performed together with Psy’s most well known hit and Hammer joining in and performing 2 L 2 Q; it's been viewed 16 million times. MC Hammer was 50 years old when this collaboration was performed and you’d never know it.  Just as much charisma and energy that he had 25 years prior.   He continues to be a very spiritual individual and places God at the top of his priority list.  He also invested a lot in tech start ups and continues to do work that aims to help and encourage young kids.  He has often said that he has no regrets about his past and it seems like he is in a good place now and I haven’t heard much about any money woes as of late.  In some ways, it’s sort of understandable why he ended up struggling with money, he really had no example growing up of how to handle income because he grew up with so little.  I imagine exploding the way he did back then was a shock to the system and he went overboard quickly without realizing it until it was too late.  Regardless of that though, MC Hammer has left his mark on music, entertainment, Christianity and of course music videos.    

Fun facts

• Vanilla Ice once said that he was a better dancer than MC Hammer
• They both had fades etched into their left eyebrows
• Some of the money that Hammer earned from his album Let’s Get it Started he used to put a recording studio in the back of his tour bus which he used to record music for his second album 
• His music videos had a big impact on MTV, they didn’t play a ton of rap videos until MC Hammer came on the scene 
• Elmo impersonated MC Hammer once in a segment where he was named MC Elmo
• Contributed a song called “This is What We Do” to the soundtrack of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action movie 
• At one time he was known as rap music’s most positive role model.  Due to his upbringing he wanted to present a clean image.  He didn’t have any vulgarity in his lyrics or swear words.  He wanted to make a difference with his music. I think the music video for pray really shows what he was hoping to do with his words.  
• He vowed to have at least one song dedicated to God on each album.  
• Some of the celebrities he has been friends with over the years:  James Brown, Snoop Dogg, MJ, Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson, Evandor Holifield and Warren G.  Mixed CDs- pray followed by Do you See by Warren G.  

Younger generations may never know the true magnitude of the phenomenon that was MC Hammer. There is no question that despite the ridicule he endured (and dished out at times) he was a trailblazer when it comes to the rise of popularity of Rap Music.