How Nineties hip-hop legends became obsessed with the Mazda MPV.
but undeniable. In the video for Fat Joe’s 1993 banger “The Shit Is Real,” the Bronx-born rapper, boasting of his successful transition from a life of crime to a life of stardom, emerges onto a New York City street in his ride of choice. It is not a Mercedes, a Cadillac, or a Lexus. It’s not even an Acura. It’s a first-generation Mazda MPV, a snouty three-doored loaf, with which the economy brand entered the American minivan market in 1988 for the 1989 model year.
Joe wasn’t alone in his affection for this odd-duck truck. The MPV appeared in the lyrics and videos for a raft of Nineties East Coast hip-hop legends, including Biz Markie, the Wu-Tang Clan, Prodigy, Busta Rhymes, Heavy D, and the Notorious B.I.G.’s 1990 and 1991 10Best lists that appealed to these superstars.
But according to the late Biz Markie, the roots of MPV affection emerged from a cult of personality. Though Gang Starr member DJ Premier claimed that his personalized MPV, with its highly regarded custom sound system, was the progenitor of rappers’ affinity for the vehicle, Markie—in a 2017 interview with Questlove—traces it to notorious Harlem crack dealer Rich Porter., was an avid car collector and automotive omnivore.
By the early Nineties, the Mazda van trend had become so viral it even united beefing East and West Coast rappers. When California superstar Tupac Shakur was in New York filming the 1994 basketball dramaBrett Berk is a former preschool teacher and early childhood center director who spent a decade as a youth and family researcher and now covers the topics of kids and the auto industry for publications including CNN, the New York Times, Popular Mechanics and more.
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