[From an article about Bootylicious]
Entertainment Weekly, May 20, 2016 by jessica goodman
http://www.ew.com/article/2016/05/20...th-anniversary
By May 2001, they had reclaimed the word “Bootylicious” on one of the album’s touchstone tracks that featured the phrase “I don’t think you ready for this jelly” and a
Stevie Nicks’ guitar sample. Fifteen years after it was released on May 20, 2001, some of the track’s key players remember how it all went down.
“I had this track that had a
Stevie Nicks’ [1981 hit “Edge of Seventeen”] guitar loop on it,” producer Rob Fusari, who has since worked closely with Lady Gaga, told EW in an interview earlier this year. He said hip-hop group Bell Biv Devoe wanted the song, but he gave it to Destiny’s Child’s manager and Beyoncé’s father, Mathew Knowles, instead.
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But Mathew Knowles went back and forth with Fusari about the track, debating whether to pull out the
Nicks sample, which proved to be a fiscal splurge. “Initially the loop I wanted in the track was from ‘Eye of the Tiger’ which is the same riff,” Fusari said. “I didn’t have the vinyl to handle it, but I did have the Stevie Nicks record. Needless to say, Mathew was adamant about not replacing that loop because I knew it was going to come with a significant sample fee and a copyright that Stevie Nicks would want and sure enough it did. It was 50 percent of everything. He said, ‘The record’s perfect the way it is,’ so I didn’t get to change that. We kind of had a pissing match in terms of what the record needed.”
The sample worked to their advantage when the iconic Fleetwood Mac singer made a cameo in the “Bootylicious” music video, directed by Matthew Rolston.
Nicks plays herself in a dressing room, strapped with a glittery guitar and magenta flared pants.
“Putting [
Nicks] in the video… I don’t know what better way to put it than it’s woman-centric positioning,” said the album’s mixer Tony Maserati. “It’s super smart.”
Fans and critics agreed when the track hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song went on to sell 485,000 units to date, has been streamed more than 36.7 million times, and had a radio audience of 974 million, according to Nielsen Soundscan.