Christina Aguilera’s “Carpool Karaoke” on The Late Late Show featured an unlikely surprise guest, doing the unlikeliest of things. Not even halfway through, Melissa McCarthy pops up in the backseat of host James Corden’s SUV, just in time to rap Redman‘s verse in 2002’s “Dirrty” about how he keeps his car looking like a crash dummy drove.
This stunt turned out to be a clever bit of cross-promo: Xtina worked on Melissa’s next film Life Of The Party, out May 11. (The veteran pop diva makes a cameo and even contributes a song, “Feels So Good.”) Still, you’d be delighted to see that Melissa knew every single word to Redman’s lyrics as if it was her job. The winning Sean Spicer impersonator had a simple explanation for that: “Well, I guess that if there’s a Redman rap, it’s probably me,” she says.
“Dirrty” didn’t begin as a pop song. “Lady Marmalade” co-producer Rockwilder had worked with Redman on what was then called “Let’s Get Dirty.” Then Rockwilder heard that Christina wanted to get rid of her Disney-informed image with sophomore album Stripped. “I figured since ‘Let’s Get Dirty’ was a hip-hop song, flipping the song for a pop artist would be a whole different situation,” Rockwilder said to Entertainment Weekly. “And it was. It woke the song right up.”
