Watch The Seattle Symphony Perform ‘Baby’s Got Back’ With Sir Mix-a-Lot

Watch The Seattle Symphony Perform ‘Baby’s Got Back’ With Sir Mix-a-Lot

So this is awkward. Last Friday, the Seattle Symphony teamed up with Sir Mix-a-Lot to perform his number one hit “Baby’s Got Back”. It’s not so much the idea of rapping over an orchestra that’s awkward though. It’s the dancing.

However, the arrangement of “Baby’s Got Back” by Gabriel Prokofiev is very good. The London-based composer came up with all kinds of creative ways to replicate the electronic sounds from the song, including “an acoustic ‘Scratcher’ (made by scratching a credit card against a metal guiro), a ‘jackdaw’ (a friction drum that creates a frog like noise), bunches of bamboo cracking against the sides of drums, and various drums laden with chains and cymbals to create distorted drum and clap effects.”

Based on the sounds alone, you probably wouldn’t even know that the backing track was a live orchestra. Sir Mix-a-Lot, a Seattle native, certainly didn’t spare any panache. The 50-year-old rapper seemed to get along fine with the lovely ladies gyrating in evening wear. The fellas wearing ties in the audience loved it. [Rolling Stone]