"Let Your Backbone Slide" is the debut single by

Maestro Fresh-Wes Wesley "Wes" Williams (born March 31, 1968) is a Canadian rapper, record producer, actor, and author. He is known professionally by his stage names Maestro Fresh Wes (formerly Maestro Fresh-Wes) or Maestro as a musician, and is credited by his ...

, released in 1989 from his first album, '' Symphony in Effect''. In Canada, over 50,000 copies of the single were sold, making Maestro the first Canadian rapper to have a

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

single. It also reached #1 on '' The Record'' Singles Chart, in April 1990. In the United States, 25,000 copies were sold in its first few weeks of release. It remained the best-selling

Canadian hip hop The Canadian hip hop scene was established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much slower than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained l ...

single of all time until 2008, when it was eclipsed by

Kardinal Offishall Jason Drew Harrow (born May 11, 1976), better known by his stage name Kardinal Offishall (), is a Canadian rapper, record producer, DJ, and record executive. Often credited as Canada's " hip hop ambassador", he is regarded as one of the country ...

's "

Dangerous Dangerous may refer to: Film and television * ''Dangerous'' (1935 film), an American film starring Bette Davis * '' Dangerous: The Short Films'', a 1993 collection of music videos by Michael Jackson * ''Dangerous'' (2021 film), a Canadian-Ameri ...

". In a 2000 poll conducted by the music magazine ''

Chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

'', Let Your Backbone Slide was voted the 11th greatest Canadian song of all time. The song contains samples of "The Champ" by

The Mohawks William Alan Hawkshaw (27 March 1937 – 16 October 2021) was a British composer and performer, particularly of library music used as themes for movies and television programs. Hawkshaw worked extensively for the KPM production music company ...

, "

Funky Drummer "Funky Drummer" is a single released by James Brown in 1970. Its drum break, improvised by Clyde Stubblefield, is one of the most frequently sampled music recordings. Recording and composition "Funky Drummer" was recorded on November 20, 1969 ...

" by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

, "Set It Off" by Strafe, "

La Di Da Di "La Di Da Di" is a song performed by Doug E. Fresh, who provides the beatboxed instrumental, and MC Ricky D (later known as Slick Rick), who performs the vocals. It was originally released in 1985 as the B-side to " The Show". The song has since ...

" by

Doug E. Fresh Doug E. Fresh (born September 17, 1966) is a Barbados-born American rapper, record producer, and beatboxer, also known as the "Human Beat Box". The pioneer of 20th-century American beatboxing, Fresh is able to accurately imitate drum machines an ...

and

Slick Rick Richard Martin Lloyd Walters (born January 14, 1965), better known as Slick Rick, is an English-American rapper and record producer. He rose to prominence with Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew in the mid-1980s. Their songs " The Show" and " ...

, "One, Two, Three" by The B-Boys and "

Rebel Without a Pause "Rebel Without a Pause" is a song by hip hop group Public Enemy and the first single from their 1988 album, '' It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back''. The title is a reference to the 1955 film ''Rebel Without a Cause''. History "Rebel Wi ...

" by

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe ...

Music video

The

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

, directed by Joel Goldberg was shot in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, with most of it taking place in a club. In the video's first few seconds, presenter

Dwight Drummond Dwight Drummond (born September 22, 1968) is a Canadian television journalist who currently hosts ''Canada Tonight'' on CBC News Network. He previously worked as the anchor of ''CBC Toronto News with Dwight Drummond'' at CBLT, CBC Television's st ...

plays the role of a cameraman. It received rotation on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

and

BET Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...

Track listing

12" single

A-side #"Let Your Backbone Slide" (Power Mix) #"Let Your Backbone Slide" (Bonus Beat) #"Let Your Backbone Slide" (A cappella version) B-side #"Let Your Backbone Slide" (Radio Edit) #"Let Your Backbone Slide" (Club Mix)

Chart positions

Decade-end charts

References

{{authority control 1989 debut singles Maestro Fresh-Wes songs 1989 songs