judge city

There is a fantastic episode of Pete & Pete where little Pete takes a shortcut through his suburban neighborhood and stumbles upon a garage band in the midst of practice. Unable to find the band since that fateful afternoon, little Pete is desperate to hear their song again. Against the inevitability of the song slipping into mental oblivion, little Pete forms his own band and attempts to recreate the magic of that one song. I’ve had my share of little Pete moments, but there are times when it isn’t until you hear a song you’ve long forgotten that makes you wonder: ‘How did I ever let this song go?’

In the summer of 2003, I was in the zenith of my tween years and a veteran sleep-a-way camper. As the oldest girls, it was our privilege to blast our boombox from our bunk’s front porch. It was a summer of epic music, but halfway through, we discovered (was it through radio or a mix-CD?) a song that became all our own. We didn’t even know the artist or the title of the track, but its chorus we memorized by heart:

‘LADIES HANDS UP/ LET ME SEE YOU SHAKE YOUR STUFF/ A, B, C, and D CUP/ ITTY BITTY OR A BIG OL’ BUTT/ FELLAS HANDS HIGH/ LET ME SEE YOU WORK IT OUT ONE TIME/ PUT YOUR BODY AGAINST MINE/ COME ON BABY GRRRINNNNDDDDD’

Thought the song was going to be some sentimental classic about friendship and life? Nahhhh…

Me (center) and a few of my camp friends ready to make our ‘trunk wobble with that extra bounce’ at a DJ dance

It was our go-to jam, a fly female rapper telling us to ‘work it out one time.’ Her voice was intimidating, but inviting. She was coming at you, but also just wanted you to ‘shake your stuff.’ That whole summer we choreographed a dance to the chorus and performed it any chance we got (God help our counselors).

But, unlike little Pete, I didn’t try very hard to find the track after camp and it eventually faded under school, TV shows, new songs, unrequited crushes, new songs about unrequited crushes, etc.

Years later, my college roommates and I were in bid to out-do each other to find the most obscure throwback pump-up track (aka a lot of Ja Rule) when BAM–‘Ladies hands up/let me see you shake you stuff!’ popped into my head!

After Googling that lyric, I finally discovered the track was entitled ‘Ladies’ by Sarai. There it was, in front of me, playing in all its 2003 glory. 

None of my friends had known the song and, kind of like little Pete’s recruited bandmates, the song or its importance didn’t resonate with them as it did with me. Was she only a hit with my bunkmates? How come Sarai didn’t pop off? To the Wikipedia!

In 2000 Sarai signed with Epic records, which according to Wikipedia made her the ‘first white female rapper to be represented by a major U.S. label.’ That’s cool! Unfortunately, Sarai was marketed as ‘Feminem,’ the female answer to white male rapper Eminem. It was probably hard to sell a female rapper that looked like bizzaro Kristen Bell, but Feminem….really? Couldn’t top that, marketers at Epic?

After initial buzz, Sarai released The Original with the track ‘Ladies,’ on July 29, 2003 (which coincidentally was my 14th birthday). ‘Ladies’ landed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,  but soon after, little was done to market the album (well you guys did call her Feminem) and Sarai faded into the recesses of the massive 2003 hip hop scene.

I could probably do more research and listen to Sarai’s other songs, I don’t want to. It’s not laziness, it’s nostalgia. Maybe that is why one hit-wonders are one-hit wonders: they sound immediately nostalgic before time can fossilize it (ironically the band from Pete & Pete has the most nostalgic one hit ever).  For me, ‘Ladies’ is a perfect song not just because the jam still holds up, but because it still brings me the joy I felt as a tween on the cusp of high school and good friends before we went our separate ways. 

The AV Club makes a great argument that the heart of the aforementioned Pete & Pete episode is to pay it forward. Rather than reminisce, create as little Pete did with the formation of his band. But, I think that sometimes songs are meant to be a placeholder in time, no more or less. My finding of ‘Ladies’ is the retroactive discovery to little Pete’s labored search, but none the less our happiness with ultimately finding the song, that magical moment  that gives us that ‘I remember where I was when I heard that,’ is all the same.