15 Minutes Of Shame: MC Hammer's '2 Legit 2 Quit'
In 1991, with 14.5 million sales of the previous year's Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em under his elastic band, MC Hammer dropped the MC from his name and released Too Legit to Quit, a blistering response to a question that no one had asked.
Like a parachute pant-clad George Orwell, Hammer used the video for the not-quite-titular "2 Legit 2 Quit" to take us to a dystopian world where Hammer was, in fact, capable of quitting. The result is a truly epic 15-minute thrill ride that cost a whopping $4.2 million in today's dollars (last year's Boyhood cost $4 million and was 2.5 hours longer) and is guaranteed to melt your brain.
In addition to the said melting of our collective brains, the video is an insight into Hammer himself. With social media nonexistent and information not oozing uncontrollably through every available screen, the music video would have been one of the chief ways musicians shaped how audiences viewed them. That Hammer took this opportunity, which also marks the beginning of his downward trajectory as a pop entity, to assail audiences with a lengthy tapestry of barely-related cameos, overblown CGI, and his messianic importance leaves us with a curious document of a man transforming from legend to punchline before our very eyes.
Hammer's literally sung, figuratively unsung masterpiece opens with Jim Belushi, no doubt desperate for any sort of handout after being out-acted by a dog in K-9, announcing to the world that Hammer has, in fact, quit.
Naturally, the entire world erupts into chaos and celebrity cameos. Married with Children's Bud Bundy pretends he has a real name while suppressing tears, the CEO of Capitol Records reveals that, for some reason, the entire record label's future relied on Hammer, Eazy-E straight up says he doesn't know who Hammer is, and a not-too-old-for-this-shit Danny Glover appears to be at the foreground of some kind of Hammer-related rally.
Despite alerting the media, Hammer's management has neglected to let some poor promoter know that Hammer has quit, and there is a packed house of eager concertgoers one spilled soda away from a riot. To really heighten the tension, there are children in the front row. Won't Hammer please think of the children?
No, he won't, because Hammer is way too busy lifting weights and punching his own sweat in complete darkness, all while wearing a banana hammock for maximum mobility.
After working up the deep, cleansing sort of sweat only possible in pitch-black conditions, a seemingly retired Hammer is more than ready for the next step in his journey: a visit to the definitely haunted mansion of James Brown, the godfather of repeating his own song titles like a malfunctioning animatronic robot powered by domestic violence.
There, Hammer reveals that it was all a ploy. A ruse. A lie. He was 2 Legit 2 Quit, and anyone that thought otherwise is an idiot. Instead, Hammer has been training to take down the only man he views as a triple threat when it comes to dancing, singing, and lighting millions of dollars on fire for the sake of a music video: Michael Jackson. At least, I think it's Michael Jackson, since Brown and Hammer are too intimidated to utter the King of Pop's name and settle for repeated glove references and sledgehammer-subtle emphasis of the word "thrill."
Hammer is ready for this place atop the pop world, and James Brown shows his approval by lighting Hammer on fire and throwing him all over the walls of his lonely-ass Miss Havisham mansion.
Since Hammer is still shirtless from his totally chill, casual aphotic workout, James Brown uses his fire skills to forge him a suit and then spontaneously generate the posse of overpaid background dancers that led to the cancellation of the actual Too Legit to Quit tour due to overspending and maybe even Hammer's eventual bankruptcy.
With the Godfather's approval, Hammer is ready to make his return, which involves flying through the skies as some sort of translucent globe and then blasting through the venue's ceiling in a huge fireball. A bunch of people bursting out of a fireball should probably raise some questions, but the world has been so Hammer-deprived that the crowd is willing to put these thermodynamic quibbles aside in order to freak the fuck out.
And, a mere eight minutes into the video, Hammer rewards this enthusiasm by finally launching into his sweet singular brand of mumbled rapping over a beat that is, quite frankly, hotter than a James Brown handshake. He even breathes new life into the cliché of the whole world being a stage by literally dancing all over the audience. You can't touch this, Shakespeare.
For someone that transcends the puny laws of physics both on and off the dance floor, performing for an audience collectively willing to have their faces stepped on in the name of legitimacy just isn't enough. So, Hammer's world-changing performance is also inter-spliced with a collage of '90s sports heroes demonstrating the 2 Legit 2 Quit hand dance (seemingly unaware that the ravages of pro sports would 100% mean they had to quit), a mid-set trip to one of his many other workout dungeons and possibly even solving urban blight through some sweet back-alley dance moves.
But in the end, this was bigger than us. It was about the respect of the one man/glove that Hammer can look up to in this world. And did he earn it? Thankfully, a totally authentic cameo from Michael Jackson that is in no way a body double clears it up, once and for all.
Say what you will about MC Hammer (no, really, no one's going to stop you and he won't mind the publicity) but when it really comes down to it, we should all be thankful for "2 Legit 2 Quit," since it is both an immensely satisfying campy romp for viewers of the "so bad it's good" variety and a testament to the excesses of an era of mainstream music that is itself too epic to be forgotten.