Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock - “It Takes Two"

[HER MINAJesty]

"It takes two to make a thing go right, it takes two to make it outta sight!  I wanna rock right now, I'm Rob Base and I came to get down!  I'm not internationally known, but I'm known to roc a microphone!"


HOT ol' skool jam from 1988!

[af18c]

Its good. I still hear it on Star 93.7 WQSX

[mst3k]

I love it... the video was so laughably low-budget.

[Edf85]

JAM!

[krazymack]

This song was classic rap, way before the "gangsta rap" image that many rappers have chosen to adopt.

I have nothing but respect for this song. I still love it and get down to it to date.

[reception]

Edf85 said:

JAM!

ah... I like it.

[Deleted]

I like it.

[EvanJ]

Top 80s songs on Mediabase:
CHR-Pop:
1. Salt-N-Pepa: "Push It"
2. "It Takes Two"
CHR-Rhythmic:
1. Tone-Loc: "Wild Thing" (this goes from Number 162 gold with 20 spins to Number 1 with 292 spins)
2. Digital Underground: "Humpty Dance"
3. "It Takes Two"
Urban:
1. Slick Rick: "Children's Story"
2. New Edition: "Can You Stand The Rain"
3. LL Cool J: "I Need Love"
4. Bobby Brown: "Don't Be Cruel"
5. Doug E. Fresh: "The Show"
6. "It Takes Two"
No 80s song is ahead of "It Takes Two" on more than one format.

[Hervard]

WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!
WOO!
YEAH!

[Nicholas2.0]

See above, and you will see what overshadows the actual song for me, and why I've never been able to like it, nor understand why it's a rap classic.

[reception]

Here's a full clip.

[busyboy]

Classic!

[cartman2002]

It Takes Two got to #36 on the Hot 100 in 1988 and was the #300 video on MTV's Top 300 videos of all time which I recorded and still have on VHS tape back in 1991

[Glove Slap]

Classic JAM!

[joker]

dm said:

Classic JAM!

[rr1981]

krazymack said:

This song was classic rap, way before the "gangsta rap" image that many rappers have chosen to adopt.

I have nothing but respect for this song. I still love it and get down to it to date.

This is the kind of song that EVERYBODY loves.

[Soulsista]

This is definitely a hip-hop classic. It hit #3 Dance, #17 R&B, and #36 Pop. It sampled the 1972 Lyn Collins song "Think (About It)".

Hit it!

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

The ONLY rap song that my dad actually f**ks with and likes, lol. I didn't actually grew up listening to rap so this song is the only thing that comes remotely close to listening to it, lol.

[Deleted]

A generational bridge song right here.

[Unhinged]

Classic jam!

[areyoureadytojump]

I went to a pretty much all white Catholic university.

When this song came on during our dances, there was a stampede to the dance floor!

[disman00911]

One of my all-time favorite 80s rap records.  Always heard this as an old school cut on WGCI and B96 growing up.  DJ Kool & Fatman Scoop made a cover/remake version of this song in 2000. This song also influenced many of the hip house records of the late 80s/early 90s.  I was quite shocked that this song didn't do better on the pop charts as it is a an 80s track that most people know, even among those who don't like rap/hip hop or 80s music in general.  Maybe there was still resistance to rap music among top 40 music programmers back then.

music video
www.youtube.com/watch?v=phOW-CZJWT0

[🇯🇲 lucy88 🇯🇲]

#462 on Billboard's 500 Greatest Pop Songs

462. Rob Base & DJ EZ-Rock, "It Takes Two"

Hot 100 Peak: No. 36 (Oct. 29, 1988)

You Know What It Is: One of the earliest examples that rap as a genre could produce party and wedding staples as timeless as Motown.

These Words: Countless quotables to be had throughout “It Takes Two,” but few more out-of-nowhere memorable than Base declaring, “I like the Whopper, f–k the Big Mac” — up there with Run-D.M.C. hanging out at KFC in “You Be Illin'” and the Beastie Boys shilling for White Castle throughout Licensed to Ill for rap’s greatest fast-food product placement of the ’80s.

Coming Around Again: “It Takes Two” still shows up time and time again in music and pop culture, but perhaps most notable was barely a year later, when Seduction lifted both the chorus hook and the song’s famous break (originally sampled from Lyn Collins’ “Think (About It)”) for their much bigger 1990 chart hit “Two to Make It Right.”