Sir Mix-a-Lot Finds Out

He is a Seattle sports legend. Also: butts. At 62 years young, the rapper reveals how a Super Bowl ad inspired "Baby Got Back," why he was live-tweeting a Seahawks comeback at 80 miles an hour... and what happened to that viral lady grinding with him at the symphony. • Previously on PTFO: The NFL Coach and Sir Mix-a-Lot's Mercedes https://pod.link/1685093486/episode/Njk0YjViYjNjOTU3OGM4Y2RhYzQyNmUx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  I like big butts and I cannot lie. Period.

• 0:12Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 0:17Speaker 02

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 0:23Speaker 03

  Love the crown molding.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 0:28Speaker 03

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 0:35Speaker 03

  No FiOS? Yeah, no thank you.

• 0:39Speaker 02

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye-bye.

• 0:41Speaker 04

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• 0:46Speaker 05

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• 1:18Pablo Torre?

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• 2:02Pablo Torre?

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• 2:26Pablo Torre?

  Sir Mix-a-Lot, AKA, according to the federal government, Anthony Ray, it is an honor to have you on the show.

• 2:34Speaker 01

  I just had to go pull stuff out of my damn studio to try to make this work in here. So I'm in my kitchen dining room area.

• 2:42Pablo Torre?

  It's an honor. I didn't think this would happen. I've been chasing you. I've been investigating how to get to you for like a year, like on Twitter, and you never showed up until now.

• 2:53Speaker 01

  I'm not too good at social media. I can talk a lot of shit, but the Hawks. Let's talk some Hawk shit.

• 3:00Pablo Torre?

  We're gonna talk some Hawk shit. We're gonna talk about the way in which you might be responsible for a lot of the bad shit that happened to your Hawks. I wanna get to that. I wanna build to that.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 3:11Pablo Torre?

  You didn't think you were gonna get held to account on Pablo Torre finds out?

• 3:16Speaker 01

  I bring them good luck.

• 3:17Pablo Torre?

  Well, okay, we'll get to that.

• 3:35Pablo Torre?

  I just need to establish that when I was telling people, friends of mine, that today I'm interviewing Sir Mix-a-Lot, the reaction that I received is unique.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I'm unique, okay. Well said, well said.

• 3:51Pablo Torre?

  The story that I tried to get you on the show for, which you were not on the show for, which I still think is a shame, we can now just fill people in on this. Are you familiar with the story that I was trying to report about you and your candy apple red Mercedes and this coach, Sherman Smith, and Dylan McCullough? Are you familiar with this story at all?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  I do remember the car. It was a pretty tacky pimped out Mercedes with rims and gold shit all over it. Oh, God, man.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  Now, see, I grew up around pimps.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Don't raise your kid around pimps.

• 4:31Pablo Torre?

  But you don't remember anything about who you sold the car to? Or how future NFL coach Dylan McCullough wound up getting involved in this whole tale of your pimped out Mercedes?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  The, please, the coach bought it?

• 4:44Pablo Torre?

  Oh, oh, oh, oh, Mix. There's so much you need to, to hear about. And I, I actually don't want to spoil it because it's an incredible story. It involves Sherman Smith, who was a long time Seahawks running back. We're going to link it in the show notes, involves future NFL Raiders running backs, coach Dylan McCullough and his search for his real dad. And you are essential to the unwinding of the story because it involves the car. And you're a big car guy is what I'm also, of course, realizing as I look through your life story. I mean, Mr. Lamborghini is also an AKA that you go by.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Oh, that just for one song. They call me Mr. Lamborghini. See me, believe me, we be hitting them twisties. You know, that kind of stuff, you know?

• 5:32Pablo Torre?

  I need to tell you that when I was in high school, I had a, we had a class called speech and we had to give some oration in front of everybody else. And people were doing, you know, the Gettysburg Address and some MLK, right? So it's that kind of a thing. And I get up there as a freshman in high school and I do baby got back and it didn't go great for me in speech class with Dr. Drakamo.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Look at you now, man. You blossom.

• 6:04Pablo Torre?

  The most painful B plus I ever received was because I-

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Come on now, you're spoiled. You must be used to As.

• 6:13Pablo Torre?

  That's right.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  The only As I got in high school was A. What's up, man? A. That's all I got.

• 6:19Pablo Torre?

  I want to understand what young Sir Mix-a-lot was like because the, the, the technology part of your origin story, you were a tech guy before you were a music guy.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  That's what got me into music. It wasn't music that got me into tech. It was tech that got me into music. If it stayed guitars and drums, I would have never gotten involved with music. But when the technology got into it, I, it made me curious.

• 6:43Pablo Torre?

  So you're growing up in Seattle. You're from Central District, yes? Could you paint the picture for people who have never been, are unfamiliar with what that all felt and looked like and sounded like at the time?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Well, like I said, I'm a little older than you, a bit older than you.

• 6:59Pablo Torre?

  Just a little.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Nineteenth and Yesler, at that time, was where pimps and hoes did what they had to do. So that's where I came from, really. So pimps, hoes slamming Cadillac goes. That's what I was around. So that, that kind of pushed me towards hip hop, even though hip hop wasn't born yet. And that's kind of where I come from, but my mom wasn't gonna let me be no pimp. So I got as close as I could to that, and that was it. And that's where hip hop comes in. So I could talk about pimping, but don't be pimping.

• 7:38Pablo Torre?

  I want to point out, because you alluded to your age and the generation you come from. And if you are in fact 62 years old, you should be selling skincare products.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  What did they say? My mom used to say, black don't crack.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  But it does wrinkle.

• 7:55Pablo Torre?

  I want to put a wrinkle in the story of the song that got me a B+ when I was in high school. That has been the song that everybody knows you for, because I didn't realize that this is also a Super Bowl story. It's Super Bowl week, part of why you're here. Has something to do with a commercial?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  There he is. What a happening, dude.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  There's a super party animal. His name is Spud McKenzie.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  A barbecue inside.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  What the [bleep] was that, man?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Spud McKenzie was nodding to like.

• 8:41Pablo Torre?

  There are a few things that are as 1988, 89 as what you just saw. That is a bull terrier named Spud McKenzie that was a star. A bona fide American commercial superstar. And this is a Budweiser ad and all that [bleep]. I want to draw everyone's attention, though, to of course, not just the dog, but the women in the ad. Because, Mix, that is, that's what beauty was in American life.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Waif.

• 9:13Pablo Torre?

  That's a very literary description for the skinny and extraordinarily white palette of beauty standards along Madison Avenue at that point.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Beauty rhymes with booty. I think God made it that way.

• 9:27Pablo Torre?

  But for people who don't remember, you were a heretic on some level, daring to say these truths out loud when you did.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  It was something that African-American culture had been doing since before I was born. I used to hang out in front of the Bryant Manor and a lot of pimps would be running out there, they'd pop in game and we called it popping corn, but just, you know, they just dropping little nuggets that were sticking in my head. That's where my hip-hop chef stuff came from. But that's all they would do. Everybody would walk behind the chick and be like, oh yeah, that's me.

• 10:06Pablo Torre?

  And so the real question I need to ask you is, when did you know what your first line in your most famous song was gonna be?

• 10:15Speaker 01

  I said, the first line should be simple because at that time I was doing a lot of fast rapping and spitting and showing skills and all that. And I said, you know what? Time out.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  I like big butts and I cannot lie. Period. Cause it's true.

• 10:42Pablo Torre?

  Your honor, I like big butts and I cannot lie. And for people who are just listening to this, you're missing out on what we're doing on YouTube because the shot, the aesthetics of the music video are also so perfect.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  That was scary to me because I'm like, what the hell? It looks like a cartoon in here. But Rick Rubin said, trust him. So I trusted him and sure enough, he pulled it off.

• 11:08Pablo Torre?

  I'm sorry. Hold on. Rick Rubin is responsible for why there is a 50-foot yellow butt in that video?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  He was paying the bills.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  There you go. Hey, Your Honor, if I'm getting arrested, arrest that man first.

• 11:25Pablo Torre?

  I didn't realize that, you know, the Yoda style character that Rick Rubin has been regarded as over time. His contribution to this piece of musical history was we need mix to sit in between two cartoon giant ass cheeks and rap.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yep. And a lot of, you know, the joke, most of my homeboys are like, yeah, I saw your video. You look like a piece of [BLEEP]. And I was like, damn, that's a good point, actually. I had on brown and black, too. Oh, my goodness. Must've ate too much spinach.

• 12:03Pablo Torre?

  What were your demands when you were making this video? Because, okay, Rick Rubin does the mountain range of ass. But what did you want out of your giant debut experience?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Well, the whole time I'm doing the video, I'm trying to figure out. I, we need a scene that's gonna make something credible here because I don't want to be the goofy guy that made that one big song. So thank God I came up with a couple of other things to, like the hat and the stuff of that [BLEEP]. So people don't only think Baby Got Back, they remember Posse on Broadway and My Hoopde. And people don't realize I've gone platinum a few times.

• 12:37Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Not just once.

• 12:39Pablo Torre?

  I want to get to the oeuvre because it is extensive and arguably as deep as the valley that is that giant ass crack that we just saw. But your phone number, are you, are you aware of the legend of your phone number? I'm not even referring, by the way, to 1-900-MIX-A-LOT.

• 13:01Pablo Torre?

  Which unfortunately does not connect to you because I did dial it. I'm referring to the story of the guy who got your personal phone number in Seattle after you had it. Have you ever heard about this guy?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  I just heard about this like two weeks ago. Two, about two weeks ago, I heard about it. I'm like, okay, what, what the hell, poor fella?

• 13:23Pablo Torre?

  So it's 2013. A law student named Jonathan Nichols had moved from Iowa to Seattle. And he was looking for a new number, area code 206.

• 13:33Speaker 06

  So I went into the Verizon store. I just picked the one that was the easiest to remember and went with it. And within a few weeks, months, I started getting random texts or voicemails for Anthony and or Mix. And then I started to think, maybe he was pretty successful because they were from Maserati dealerships or Lamborghini dealerships.

• 14:02Speaker 06

  And then I started getting demos, YouTube demos, saying, hey, Mix, we should work with this guy. And to all of these folks, I just said, wrong number, you got the wrong guy. I didn't know, I couldn't put two and two together until my phone was blowing up with happy birthday messages and a lot of people referencing Baby Got Back and saying, happy birthday, Sir Mix-a-lot. And I was like, no shit. So I just Googled him and I'm like, sure enough, that is his birthday. His name is Anthony. And some of the ladies started sending me text messages from around the country, different area codes. And the funniest one

• 14:41Speaker 06

  was this one lady sent me a picture in a mirror with her backside showing and saying something to the effect that I still got something that you like, or you can't not lie.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Oh, God. I was hoping he wouldn't say names. Oh, God, man. Okay. I'm embarrassed. That's crazy.

• 15:11Speaker 06

  And I responded with wrong number. And then she sent me another, her response to that was sending me another selfie, full frontal, and says, remember me now?

• 15:22Pablo Torre?

  I just need people to appreciate that Jonathan Nichols could not be more the photo negative of Sir Mix-a-lot in terms of just his general vibe.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  I feel bad for that guy, man.

• 15:34Pablo Torre?

  I think he basically said, if I were to translate, he said, whoever owned this phone had hoes in different area codes.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I was a little, I was a little loose back then.

• 15:47Pablo Torre?

  The thing that he, uh, he sent back, by the way, because Jonathan, uh, and I, I, God bless Jonathan, because what he does is apparently he's with his then boyfriend at the time, of course, who took a photo of Jonathan's face and sent it back to interested party who had reached out to you.

• 16:10Speaker 06

  And she called me right away and was mortified. I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. And I told her not to worry about it. And, uh, I wasn't going to do anything creepy with it. And I deleted the photo. But that story was the funniest to just be me as a gay guy getting a full frontal from random women, um, around the country.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Well, I wish I had his phone number because if you get any more full frontals, I'll take them. Forward them, forward them right to me. Let me shut up because I'll take that literally.

• 16:44Pablo Torre?

  Just as a general curiosity, how has it been over time to be the face and the voice of butts?

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Tell you the truth, man, um, if you're about 40 now, you're a Baby Got Back fan.

• 17:03Pablo Torre?

  Yes, I'm 40 years old, exactly.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  If you're older than that, you, you go to my deeper stuff, right? So I get a lot of people that hate Baby Got Back. They go, man, the, man, you under, man, they act like I'm underestimating myself, right? It's like, no, no, they, they like where I'm spitting, like lockjaw, all those songs where I'm just flying through them, right?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  But everybody likes Baby Got Back and people say, well, you should tell people to stop interviewing you about that song. I'm like, you think I'm fucking ignorant? You got to be, man, that's like telling Bill Gates, don't talk about Microsoft. No, no, no, no. Uh-uh. No, that's, that's my cash cow. But when I tour.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  When I start spitting, they like, when the fuck did this happen? And that's what I really grew up doing. Baby Got Back was just a funny idea that I thought would be offensive and that's it.

• 18:12Pablo Torre?

  Where should they start? On the list of songs that Sir Mix-a-Lot wishes people knew that he also made, what's the, what's, what's number one on the list?

• 18:21Speaker 01

  I mean, if you look at the numbers, the numbers are scary when you see that it's challenging. Some of the songs are challenging Baby Got Back for plays.

• 18:29Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, I mean, look, my hooptie, back in your car, it turns out.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  And it's a real car.

• 18:41Pablo Torre?

  What, it's a rea-

• 18:42Speaker 01

  It's, it's a real, it's a car I actually had. Yeah, I call it Exorcist Puke Green.

• 18:49Pablo Torre?

  Which takes us, by the way, to another music video involving a different car. Cause now we're talking about beepers.

• 19:01Pablo Torre?

  Seattle in this era, right? Cause it's late eighties, early nineties. Seattle, outside of your aesthetic cinematic universe, which we're now painting for people. We're talking about grunge, right? In sports, it's Ken Griffey Jr. And Gary Payton and Sean Kemp. But musically, it's Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  That was like bye bye to rap for like four years.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  It's nah, it wasn't, nah, it wasn't no big deal. I love grunge. I love the, the dirtiness of it, you know, the way it sounds, the way it's played. I loved, I wish they did more seven string stuff, but they didn't want to sound like metal.

• 19:39Pablo Torre?

  What was your relationship like with Nirvana?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  You know, it's funny, we crossed paths. Hey, how you doing, we'll see, we'll see you at the next show. But I never did a show with them. I have a song called Swass and I mixed it with Smells Like Teen Spirit on the chorus.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  And I did it in front of them and I thought they were gonna be like, "F*** off." That's what I thought they were gonna say, but they loved it. So I'm like,

• 20:13Speaker 01

  so I'm like redo Baby Got Back. I don't know if I'd be that calm.

• 20:16Pablo Torre?

  I don't know how you would best remix Baby Got Back, but you've done, in your catalog, you've done a lot of like, genre mixing. You've sampled "We Will Rock You" into "Black Sabbath",

• 20:34Pablo Torre?

  metal stuff, right? "Mud Honey" pops up on another track.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, well, you know, I was bust, right? So I, I, I lived in the CD, but I was bust to the north then, going to Roosevelt. So I had, I was exposed to the, to metal and all that stuff back then. And I didn't give a damn if you were black, white, frog. I don't care what you were. I just, if it was cool, I'd listen to it.

• 21:05Pablo Torre?

  I've never heard someone say, "Black, white, frog", with the frog community finally getting representation.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Right. The green guys gotta get it.

• 21:16Pablo Torre?

  But speaking, speaking of creatures that know how to use their legs.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  That motherf***ing beast quake? I know we're gonna talk about it. We gotta, if we don't talk about that, I'm shooting your ass.

• 21:37Pablo Torre?

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• 22:41Speaker 05

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• 23:18Speaker 01

  Oh my god. That, oh my god. Let me tell you something. That right there was hood [BLEEP]. Marshawn, my dude, my dude. I ain't gonna lie. Last time I saw Marshawn, we were at a something, and he was associated with the Sounders. And keep in mind, these guys had on ties. They were drinking wine, you know. Marshawn.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Where you been, motherfucker? Come on, get it, come on, come on. Give it up, give it up, give it up, [BLEEP]. What's up with you? I'm like, god damn.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  But you can see that the guys of whatever the company, the Sounders people, they didn't give a [BLEEP]. They were like, huh, that's Marshawn, no problem. And what I'm saying, back to that touchdown.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Has blockers now. He's dancing his way for the touchdown. The end of it.

• 24:20Pablo Torre?

  Oh, the best.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. When he flipped and grabbed his ball sack and said, eat this mother. Ooh, you can beat that out, but that.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  I don't care about nobody.

• 24:37Pablo Torre?

  It's arguably the greatest moment in sports history. If you were to argue that, I would say, yeah, that makes sense.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  And the Richard Sherman tip, the Richard Sherman tip, and he, ooh.

• 24:46Pablo Torre?

  The immaculate deflection. Yes.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  And what was weird about him, it was like a polar opposite Richard Sherman going back and forth when he's, he's like, yeah, he's good. He's good. Don't ever put that mother on me. I'm the best quarterback in the game. When you try me with a sorry receiver like Crabtree, that's the result you gonna get. Don't you ever talk about me.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Who was talking about you? Crabtree, don't you open your mouth about the best. That motherfucker should have been somewhere there. They fuck that shit. Then he walks over to him and goes, and he wonder why he got his hand knocked.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  That's like shit. That's some psych, that's some psychological shit right there, man. Let me go walk up after I just called him everything but the child of God. And I'm gonna call him a bastard in his face and then shake his hand.

• 25:38Pablo Torre?

  The thing that I have to get to though, is of course the curse of Sir Mixa lot.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  The curse.

• 25:44Pablo Torre?

  The curse. There are lots of curses in sports. Curse of the Bambino, Steve Bartman with the Cubs. Lots of curses out there. This one is now my favorite one because it's Super Bowl week and your Seahawks are playing the Patriots. But this, to set the scene here, we're going to the 2013 playoffs.

• 26:05Pablo Torre?

  And the 2013 playoffs.

• 26:08Pablo Torre?

  You guys are playing the Atlanta Falcons.

• 26:14Pablo Torre?

  What do you remember about how this game was going when all of this?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  I don't remember shit.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  I don't get what you're talking about.

• 26:27Pablo Torre?

  Let me jog your memories, sir.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  I knew you would.

• 26:31Pablo Torre?

  It's a tough game on the road. Marshawn Lynch.

• 26:41Pablo Torre?

  And by the way, Matt Ryan, Falcons quarterback, of course,

• 26:46Pablo Torre?

  he's doing great.

• 26:52Pablo Torre?

  20 to nothing lead for the Falcons. And at some point, I suppose, right around this moment, actually, @therealmix logs on to Twitter.

• 27:04Pablo Torre?

  Quote, "I'm driving home through Cali and this game has me pissed. Road rage time."

• 27:12Pablo Torre?

  You're in your 2012 Infiniti QX56. Ring a bell?

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. I have another one, too, outside. I could buy a new one. Good truck.

• 27:24Pablo Torre?

  In this one, it was road rage time. And, I mean, fourth quarter, down 27 to 7. Seahawks coming back. Russell Wilson.

• 27:39Pablo Torre?

  Earl Thomas.

• 27:45Pablo Torre?

  Interception.

• 27:49Pablo Torre?

  Nine minutes left. And then, and we have to triangulate this, okay? The time of your posts against the game clock. Because at this moment, you tweet, quote, "Driving hard and stressing out with a photo of your odometer."

• 28:09Pablo Torre?

  Which is touching 80.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Which was not legal then. It's not legal now, actually.

• 28:14Pablo Torre?

  But it's just the emotional roller coaster.

• 28:23Pablo Torre?

  You tweet again, quote, "OMG, a zillion exclamation points. Biggest road comeback in playoff history." And then, less than 30 seconds ago, Matt Ryan, the Falcons, and the radio broadcast kind of tells a story better than I could.

• 28:43Pablo Torre?

  They hit Tony Gonzalez, the great tight end. Matt Bryant, the kicker.

• 28:52Pablo Torre?

  And you tweet again in your infinity quote, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Now that's why I should have been a news reporter. That gives you it's depth in that. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That's what I was saying in my car.

• 29:23Pablo Torre?

  Then the curse continues. Fall 2013. You remember this game Colts?

• 29:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:31Pablo Torre?

  You don't remember your Seahawks getting a kick blocked for a touchdown, taking a giant L?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  It didn't happen.

• 29:36Pablo Torre?

  Yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Never happened.

• 29:37Pablo Torre?

  You remember a couple of weeks later, you're down 21-0 to the Bucks at home?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:44Pablo Torre?

  Here's the thing that happens in that game, right? So, and this is what we are told by sources close to you.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:51Pablo Torre?

  Your brother has a suggestion. He says, what if you got the out of here and stopped watching this game?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  I do that. I'm serious. I'm superstitious like that, man. I think it's my fault. So I just walk out.

• 30:09Pablo Torre?

  Based on the evidence, based on the evidence so far, that dump was never more necessary because you go to a movie. Do you remember what movie you saw, by the way?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  No, hell no. Nah, I'm too old to be remembering that.

• 30:22Pablo Torre?

  It's fall 2013. You get back from the Hunger Games catching fire, I can only presume. And the Seahawks come back and they win. And then you're kind of feeling yourself because a couple of weeks after that, you're back to watching your favorite team. And they play the Cardinals and they lose again. And so now you have, I presume, a pivot to make here. What's your new strategy?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  I cut back on my watching. I really did. I'm telling you, even the Super Bowls, I'm kind of, I look and then I go in another room. You know, because I think it's all my fault. If they, if they win, it ain't me. But if they lose, it's me. And I think all my homies always, they tease me, they'll call me, if they lose, they always go, man, what the hell was wrong today?

• 31:07Speaker 01

  To this day, I, I, I'm the reason they lose, but not the reason they win.

• 31:13Pablo Torre?

  Well, you finally get the Super Bowl 48. It's Legion of Boom, it's Peyton Manning and the Broncos. And 43 to 8. Where were you on that Super Bowl Sunday?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  I was on tour. I was on tour and I can't remember, I was, I was on tour. I, I'm telling you, man, I, if I watched those games, I'm telling you, I, I bet you if I yelled right now like I yell when the Seahawks are playing, especially in the playoffs, you'd hear me from where you're at. Especially if something goes wrong, god damn it.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  And I act like I'm the coach, of course.

• 31:49Pablo Torre?

  But this strategy, you being the absentee coach, works because the next year, Super Bowl again, 2015. I presume now that you feel like you've been exercised.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:00Pablo Torre?

  Feel like you've been exercised.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  I, I'm gonna tell you something.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  This game coming up.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  I'm gonna watch the intro.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  I'm gonna watch the halftime.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I'm gonna watch the beginning of the third quarter.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna watch the end of the fourth quarter if they're winning. If they're not winning, I'm not watching the end of the fourth quarter. I'm gonna, cause I know, I, everybody that lives, I'm not even gonna say where they're at, those bastards that live out there and where the bad weather's at.

• 32:38Pablo Torre?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  All of them. All my friends that live on the East Coast hate the Seahawks. I wake up sometime and just send a mass email. Fuck off this morning. And then, you know, they give me the middle finger, bitches.

• 33:00Pablo Torre?

  But the point being that if this game isn't going great, you might be back on the road. You might be driving somewhere, road raging.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  I really get nervous when I'm watching live. But I'm, I'm gonna, I got some guys coming by and I'm gonna tell you what they're gonna do. All my friends, they make me leave the room. Leave dude, leave dude, you're fucking it up. Go in, go in the studio, make a song or something.

• 33:37Speaker 05

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• 34:15Pablo Torre?

  We're in 2014, Mix. It's the Seattle Symphony. And can you describe what the [bleep] is happening at the Seattle Symphony?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I don't know. My manager is something else.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  I think Ricardo, Ricardo could talk a person onto a cliff and actually say "jump" and they would do it.

• 34:39Pablo Torre?

  Which explains how you finally wound up on the show, incidentally.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Because, yeah, there you go. Because he, after you hit the ground, you might be dead, but he'll make you a star. I guarantee you.

• 34:54Pablo Torre?

  But the Seattle Symphony, for people who aren't familiar, I mean, we're talking about

• 35:00Pablo Torre?

  a stage with a Grammy-winning orchestra and a crowd.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Don't forget. Don't forget

• 35:13Speaker 01

  the woman in black.

• 35:24Pablo Torre?

  The woman in black is an internet character that deserves to be spotlight. Did you?

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Damn, I was heavy then. I lost like 50 pounds since then.

• 35:37Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna say.

• 35:39Pablo Torre?

  You look like a different person.

• 35:54Pablo Torre?

  When people describe a post-racial America, I think they're describing this YouTube video.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Probably, probably, Ben. God, I was like, like I said, damn, I was big.

• 36:05Pablo Torre?

  Could you paint the picture of like, what is happening? How this all came to be?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  So I come out, and keep in mind, I'm terrified, because this was opera music. I mean, that's what I was in the middle of, and I'm like, oh, my God. And everybody's sitting there. Some people are holding sheet music.

• 36:25Pablo Torre?

  There are cellos in the background. Yes.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, cellos, violins, whatever the hell they are. When the song starts, I'm doing it, and I'm terrified, because I'm thinking, I'm not going to get any crowd participation at all. And all of a sudden, the girl in black got up, and everybody, they just said, okay. And what blew my mind, look at the orchestra.

• 36:46Pablo Torre?

  Yes.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  Look at that. Look at that, man.

• 36:50Pablo Torre?

  The orchestra, by the way.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  It's more gray than it is in a silver factory. Look at that.

• 36:54Pablo Torre?

  The orchestra is exactly what you're imagining an orchestra would be. Everyone has like, white hair, very proper, all dressed in black themselves, by the way. And yet, the foremost conductor of this performance, of this musical climax, is not the conductor. It is the woman in black who is front and center, and has, has, oh my God, has the confidence mix. When I first saw this, I was like, oh, this is a plant. Sir makes a lot planted this woman.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Everybody said that. I wonder if she's still married, because she had a ring on.

• 37:28Pablo Torre?

  We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna try and locate the woman in black, the follow-up investigation. But what you're saying is that, once she got on stage, people organically, authentically swarmed the orchestra and got on stage too.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  It was not planned at all. People say, man, you had to plan that, plan that. But when she got up, I didn't say anything, because I'm looking at, you know, the people in charge, like, hey, is this cool? And they're like, keep going, keep going, okay? That's when all just started getting up. I was like, damn.

• 38:03Pablo Torre?

  That, and you're hopping up and down. I mean, it must be, look, I don't want to be presumptuous here, but that feels like a thing that...

• 38:13Pablo Torre?

  You may have dreamed of, or acid dreamed of, or hallucinated at one point. Like, that's [bleep] wild.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Literally, five minutes before I came out, it was

• 38:33Speaker 01

  like, what the hell is this [bleep]? And then, all of a sudden, they started and wow. I was like, damn.

• 38:40Pablo Torre?

  I like the idea that you're kind of the least informed person as to what is about to happen here.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  If I had knew, I would have said, you know, ah, no, no, no, no. Uh-uh. Now, the homies might see this and I won't be allowed back in the hood no more. You know, but nah. They, everybody liked it.

• 39:01Pablo Torre?

  But this is where I just got to jump in to level with our audience here for a second because several minutes ago, right underneath the surface of this episode, without our honored guest having any idea what we've been up to, we here at Palatore finds out, got the idea to furiously start searching for the woman in black on the internet, right now, while we were interviewing Sir Mix-a-lot. And so, not unlike that viral moment from the Seattle Symphony, which has been viewed more than 15 million times on YouTube, I can just promise you, this was not planned at all. And yet, shockingly, the lady in black, despite being herself out on the road somewhere, actually got back to us, like, right away.

• 39:46Pablo Torre?

  And what she told us suddenly inspired me to call an audible. In fact, we're gonna pause right here because we have a special guest that we have just contacted. And she may be familiar to you. Can we please route the lady in black?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't think she ever told me her name, her name or anything.

• 40:10Pablo Torre?

  Oh, my God. This is hilarious.

• 40:17Pablo Torre?

  And she's in her car.

• 40:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 40:22Pablo Torre?

  Can I formally introduce Sir Mix-a-Lot and Shawn Bounce? Do I have that correct?

• 40:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, yes, but I'm Martinez now.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Okay, well, then I gotta thank you for saying that before I started saying some bad [BLEEP].

• 40:41Speaker 01

  So I don't mean bad like bad, I mean bad like good.

• 40:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, you know, I was just in Seattle, I live in Texas now, and I was looking for you at the Seahawks game.

• 40:52Pablo Torre?

  Uh, we were just watching, Shawn, the video of you rushing the stage and becoming an all-time internet legend, and here you are again. Could you give us your perspective on what that evening was like? Because people have accused you, of course, of being a plant for Sir Mix-a-Lot.

• 41:11Speaker 07

  Right. I don't think that old-school dancing that I was a plant. But, um, but yeah, yeah, so I, um, had jammed to swass growing up, I mean, buttermilk biscuits, I mean, square dance rap, come on, I mean, I've listened to everything. And I actually worked on Broadway, on Madison and Broadway. And it was just a blast. It was such a beautiful moment, and Sir Mix-a-Lot, I hope you think the same, I mean, I really, it was a beautiful moment, and, you know, it wasn't staged, it was real life, and that is what is lacking, I think, today. I mean, this was the real, the real deal, I have the arthritis in my hips to prove it now.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Boy, did she, she made the house come down. Really, she was bigger than the song itself.

• 41:59Speaker 07

  No, no, no one could be bigger than that song, come on, but it was so beautiful and so darn fun, and I'm so glad to finally, to finally meet you, you know?

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 07

  Well, you know, I had went to a, um, a celebration of life that day, that's why I was in all black.

• 42:17Pablo Torre?

  Whoa.

• 42:18Speaker 07

  And they have, yeah, yeah, they dug me the lady in black with back, okay?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 42:29Pablo Torre?

  Wait, so just to briefly recap, so the lady in black with back went from, and my condolences, more than a decade later, you went from a funeral to that?

• 42:42Speaker 07

  Well, a celebration of life, yes, for a coworker that I worked with on Broadway, um, had passed away, he was an older gentleman. But you know, nonetheless, such a such an awesome guy. That's why I was wearing black and everyone else was wearing all that color and everything.

• 42:56Pablo Torre?

  Oh, my God.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  I wonder if he was kind of remote controlling you from heaven and said, "Go up there and shake that ass. Just do it for me. I always wanted to see it."

• 43:07Speaker 07

  So glad I didn't wear my Spanx that day because, man, it just, I mean, it just went big, didn't it? It was just so crazy. It was just out there.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  I was in Florida and they were showing me that. "Did you see this girl? Do you, what, how did I not see her? What are you talking about?" People, "Did you see her?"

• 43:25Pablo Torre?

  What's it been like to be the lady in black with back in the years since then? Because again, this is a wildly viral video.

• 43:33Speaker 07

  Oh, oh, goodness. Well, when it first happened, to be honest, it was really a beautiful thing. People were reaching out from really all over the world and talking about how important it is to love yourself, to live in the moment, to love your body. I mean, it turned into such a beautiful thing that, that I, even though you just don't know, when, when you're just out doing fun things, you you're not thinking about that. But honestly, I mean, I just, I'm back to my normal day to day life. Nothing crazy.

• 44:02Speaker 07

  Except this. This is awesome. What a beautiful surprise. I was on my way back to work.

• 44:07Pablo Torre?

  Oh, my God. Um, I, I didn't expect to find out this much today on Pablo Torre finds out. But uniting the two of you is, it's a dream that my teenage self could not have ever imagined.

• 44:22Speaker 07

  Well, ditto. I mean, this is awesome. Like I said, I've been listening to you since SWAS. And you look great. You look really great. You look really fabulous. And I'm happy to, to have really met you. And I really want to thank you for all your music and bringing so much joy to everybody. I mean, it's really uplifting and fun, and we need to have more fun.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Probably one of the most popular videos that I had anything to do with on the internet.

• 44:46Speaker 07

  It just, I cannot believe that. I mean, well, you are a superstar and I'm like in awe and so excited. I hope my street cred goes up again.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, here you're in. The Crips and the Bloods, they stopped, they stopped fighting each other just because of you.

• 45:01Speaker 07

  I hope when you do come to Texas, you look me up. I'd love to meet you.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  You in person. Oh, that'll happen because I do have a tour coming up. Good, good. I'll be ready.

• 45:11Pablo Torre?

  I love that this happened while the lady in black with back was in her car. This has been an episode largely about, it turns out, cars. And so I'm gonna let you go back on the road. I'm gonna ask you, do you have a Super Bowl prediction, lady in black? Because.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Are you kidding? Seahawks all the way, all the way.

• 45:33Pablo Torre?

  Thank you both for participating in the most absurd Super Bowl preview episode that a technically sports show has ever done.

• 45:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we knew it the whole time. Thanks, guys. What a treat. Wow. Thank you.

• 45:47Pablo Torre?

  No, thank you.

• 45:58Pablo Torre?

  Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tubinello. Our studio engineering is by RG Systems. Our sound design by Andrew Bursick and NGW Post. Digital strategy by Bailey Carlin and Andrew Northern. And our theme song, as always, by John Bravo.

• 46:21Pablo Torre?

  We'll talk to you next time.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Welcome to 215 Maple Drive. We just put this property on the market.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Love the crown molding.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Oh, wait until you see the walk-in closets and the bathroom tile.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Does it have Verizon FiOS? You know, 100% fiber internet.

• 46:48Speaker 02

  No FiOS, but it looks like it's got cable. Let's check out the kitchen.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  No FiOS? Yeah, no, thank you.

• 46:55Speaker 02

  Don't you want to see the rest? Okay, bye bye.

• 46:58Speaker 04

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• 47:28Speaker 06

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