"Cars with the Boom" by L'Trimm

Song#:  3654

Date:  09/24/1988

Debut:  94

Peak:  54

Weeks:  15

Genre:  Hip-Hop, Rap

Pop Bits:  This teenage duo was made up of Lady Tigra (Rachel de Rougemont) and Bunny D (Elana Cager). The best friends from the Miami area got involved in the burgeoning Miami bass scene, which was a subgenre of hip hop that was known for its use of the Roland TR-808 drum machine and heavy bass. The duo began writing songs and wound up recording one for the Miami-based Time-X label in '87 titled "Grab It." The tune was sort of a response to the Salt-N-Pepa hit "Push It." Distributed as a single, the tune did well locally and that led to them recording a full album for the label titled Grab It! and pushing out a second single, "Cars with the Boom." Again, response was strong and that led to Atlantic Records swooping in and making a deal to take the album national. With the broader push, a reissue of "Cars with the Boom" started to gain attention and it would get inside the R&B Top 40 at #39. It then crossed over to Pop and nearly made the top half of that chart. The reissued LP would get to #132 Pop/#55 R&B. A second single, "Cuttie Pie," would get to #54 R&B. The results were promising and the duo got the chance to do a second LP for Atlantic. Drop That Bottom would come out in '89, but it failed to make an impression. A third effort, 1991's Groovy took them away from Miami bass and into more of a club-oriented sound with elements of new jack swing and C+C Music Factory style jams. The change didn't pay off and L'Trimm's recording days were over. The pair would maintain their friendship while moving on to other careers.

ReduxReview:  L'Trimm were certainly interesting. It was as if someone plucked a pair of teens off the street and said - here are some beats, jot some lyrics and rap them in the mic. There was a strange naivety to the girls and their silly lyrics that when married with the Miami bass sound kind of worked. The pair were definitely not good rappers, but it didn't really matter. They made tunes for a certain audience who jumped on board with them. Apparently, the more hardcore rappers of the day were not having it and called the duo out for their fluffy confections saying they set rap back a few years, but there was a market for more fun, innocent, dance-pop rap and L'Trimm were able to tap into that. At least for a short while. This single is utterly goofy, but it is also stupidly fun. It has also earned some respect over the years with Rolling Stone putting the song at #100 on their 2016 list of the Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time.

ReduxRating:  7/10

Trivia:  This song would get revived and find a new audience over thirty years later. In 2020, some users of the app TikTok began posting videos of themselves dancing to the song. The tune then quickly started to sweep over TikTok with more users posting videos with the song. In a short period of time, over 1 million videos featuring the song were put up on TikTok. That led to the song getting attention on other platforms such as Spotify (over 2 million streams) and YouTube where a video uploaded not long after the TikTok explosion has now been seen nearly 10 million times. Lady Tigra and Bunny D would be tracked down and interviewed about the sudden resurgence of the song, which was a bit of a shock to them with Bunny D calling is "surreal.". However, they loved that something they created decades ago had found a new audience and has even caused some of their family to view the former hip hop stars in a new light.

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