| Thursday 24 September 2015 |
|
"Fantasy" 20 years later
|
It was like a fantasy. He was gritty - not only by name. A founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, his unruly mane and gold grill enhanced his trademark persona: Ol' Dirty Bastard. Meanwhile, Mariah Carey was a 25-year-old, squeaky clean diva-in-training who belted out a string of No. 1 singles about finding your inner hero, visions of love and being rescued by a "dreamlover".
The two came together in the most unlikely of ways: a grunge rapper and a sweet songbird on one song. An unfounded concept, that is until 1995, when Carey and the late rapper brought their respective talents together for "Fantasy (Remix)". Carey's ninth song to top the Billboard singles chart was brazenly flipped into hip-pop perfection, with the powerhouse cooing the dreamy track as the self-proclaimed "dirty doggy" smeared his glorious rap rhymes all over it. Over a sample of Tom Tom Club's 1981 jam, "Genius of Love", and Carey's daydreamy vocals, the rapper snarls, "Me and Mariah go back like babies with pacifiers."
A turning point in Carey's career, the chart-topping song quickly became a trendsetter, giving birth to a new genre - "hip-pop" - as TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes once put it. "My first thought was, 'Who the hell allowed this to happen?'," former MTV news correspondent John Norris tells ET about the remix's initial release. "It wasn't just a pop singer and a rapper," he adds. "It was the sweetest pop singer and as gritty of an East Coast rapper as we had at the time."
While Columbia Records - Carey's label from 1988 to 1999 - gave it the ultimate go-ahead, it was Carey who relentlessly pushed Tommy Mottola, the head of the label and her then-husband, for creative control. She was restless. And ready. "The record companies didn't understand my collabs with hip-hop artists and producers, such as 'Fantasy' with ODB or ‘Heartbreaker' with Jay Z," Carey told Variety in August. "Now anyone would kill to have a record with Jay Z. I got a lot of flak for that."
"People who wanted her to be a Celine Dion-type artist had gripes about it," rapper Da Brat recalls to ET. A close friend and collaborator of Carey's, the rapper would help with the singer's urban transition. The change was in full force by the time Butterfly was released in 1997, spurring crossover gems with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and hip-hop heavyweight P. Diddy. Rainbow followed in 1999, and its first single, "Heartbreaker", featured rappers on both versions of the record. Jay Z appeared on the official release while Missy Elliott and Brat came together for an all-female anthem.
Regarding Carey's fringe makeover, Brat says, "Tommy Mottola didn't want that. He didn't want her on that level. He didn't even want her associating with rappers like that. She fought for that, because Mariah's got a little hood in her."
Carey's fight was victorious, igniting a wave of collaborations in the dirty-pop vein of the "Fantasy" and "Heartbreaker." Jennifer Lopez teamed up with Ja Rule for two of her biggest singles, "I'm Real" and "Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix)". Fergie, who first broke on the scene as the hook singer of The Black Eyed Peas, collaborated with Ludacris on her solo release. Christina Aguilera teamed up with Redman. And Ashanti found success with a number of rappers. By 2002, the format was so popular that the Grammys introduced an award for the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, which eventually went to Beyonce and Jay Z for "Crazy in Love".
"She set the trend," Brat says of Carey, whose influence is clearly seen in a number of today's young artists - even if today's new generation of singers don't realize the path they're following. "All the new R&B and younger pop artists should worship the ground Mariah walks on because she paved the way in so many different ways by trying different things that the world didn't necessarily agree with," she adds. "And that's what these new artists lack - they lack appreciation, and they lack respect."
While Carey has always straddled the worlds of pop and R&B, the hip-hop element has increasingly become popular among today's pop divas. Earlier this year, Taylor Swift joined forces with Kendrick Lamar for the remix of "Bad Blood". Also in 2015: Britney Spears and Iggy Azalea famously banded together for "Pretty Girls".
"The 'Fantasy' remix set the template for what pop has become," Norris says. "It's almost a given now that pop songs will have a hip-hop element to them. Those two elements are almost a requirement to get on pop radio today." But as the format has become more popular, "the collaborations we see are not nearly as unexpected," Norris adds.
Unexpected or just unimpressive? According to Brat, those to follow Carey are just attempting to capture a vibe that singer simply embodied. "Mariah was already edgy, so to me, it merged better," she says. "The gelling between Mariah and ODB - they were in the studio together, and he was probably smoking weed and she was, you know, probably sippin' her wine. A true artist can tell how the process went."
Nobody then was bridging pop and hip-hop on such a massive level - at least nobody as mainstream, or as universally adored as Carey. And it was a win-win, both for Carey's career and the hip-hop community. "The whole hip-hop community and R&B world - we loved it," Brat says. "Finally we had somebody to take us over to the pop side. It was just incredible." But it goes beyond the approval of one or two genres, "'Fantasy' is the most important recording she's ever done," Norris adds.
(Entertainment Tonight)
|
|
|
| |
|
B from USA wrote:
| |
|
|
Fantasy (Remix) still sounds fresh today and is the blueprint. Mariah deserves this type of recognition.
(Thursday 24 September 2015; 16:49)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Bill from the UK wrote:
| |
|
|
I agree B, it was a great article and MC certainly deserves way more credit and respect for how she has changed the face of popular music. It's plain as day that, despite what they all say, every female singer of the last ten or fifteen years wants to be Mariah. They emulate her singing style, her various looks, the genres she operates in etc. Mariah will always be the best because she was one of the last genuine artists to descend upon us. When she arrived nobody sang like her, looked like her, or did what she did. It was genuine, she was unique. She is very much "often imitated, never duplicated". So true.
(Thursday 24 September 2015; 18:12)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Carlos from Brazil wrote:
| |
|
|
This article just says it all. Should be printed and posted everywhere. Long live the Fantasy remix. 
(Thursday 24 September 2015; 19:50)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Baby from Dreamville...Where There's No Beginning & There is No End wrote:
| |
|
|
Wow, look at Entertainment Tonight doing the job of RollingStone, Billboard, The Grammy's etc. They are taking thorough too, actually tracking down John Norris and Da Brat for new quotables. I'm impressed since most media outlet's staff are all about shortcuts and secondhand reporting. But not ET, who are also responsible for a recent new classic: 1988 Mariah Carey hair, from the now infamous HWOF event. Very nice to see that there are actually still some people around M who have remained consistent and loyal no matter where the wind blows. All of this was just to reiterate how Fantasy is another genius of MC's and so I guess all that's left to say is Happy Anniversary Hip-Pop and R.I.P.ODB Free the clown, directed by Mariah Carey.
(Thursday 24 September 2015; 21:16)
|
|
|
|
|
Only registrated members can post a comment.
|
|
|
