Michael Jordan isn’t known for being a huge rap fan, but according to comedian Alex Thomas, there’s one particular N.O.R.E. track the NBA superstar loves.
Speaking to HipHopDX, the star of Netflix’s new animated series Motown Magic explained how appearing in the music video for N.O.R.E.’s 2002 hit “Nothin’” gave him a new level of fame, while also revealing the origins of the video’s famous “Tatalalicious” catchphrase.
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“That one line made me famous,” Thomas told DX, referring to the woman’s name he throws out in the video hoping it’ll get him past security and into the club N.O.R.E. abandons him outside of. “Now, I had already been on TV, I had already done movies, but that year when the N.O.R.E. video came out … I didn’t realize the impact of [it].”
“There was nothing bigger than MTV and BET at that time,” he continued. “So between MTV and BET, that video had to be ran 15 times a day. [It was on] from the minute you woke up in the morning until one o’clock the next morning.
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“The spins and the views — and this is way before social media and TikTok and Instagram and all that other stuff — millions of people were seeing that. More people saw that video, I swear, than all my movies put together.”
However, this heightened level of fame might never have happened for the comedian had N.O.R.E.’s first two choices, Eddie Griffin and Anthony Anderson, picked up their phones. “Neither of them answered and that’s who they wanted in the video. Then boom! I got it,” Thomas said.
It was during the hype of “Nothin'” that Alex Thomas met Michael Jordan for the first time, when the NBA champion approached him in a Chicago club to tell him how much of a fan he was of the song and its video.
“I met Michael Jordan maybe 2002 or something,” he recalled. “I’m in a club in Chicago at one of my pro basketball player’s birthday parties. Michael Jordan walks up to me and straight up looks me in the face and goes… ‘Tatalalicious! Tatalalicious!’ Man, when I tell you a small tear came out my eye — I couldn’t believe that guy knew who I was.
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“He’s like, ‘Man, that shit’s so funny. That’s my favorite song. I’ve seen that video 10 times today.’ I was like, ‘Michael Jordan, can you sign my shoes?’ I took a shoe off and put it in his face; he signed that bitch right, and everybody was on the floor dying.”
Asked if the shoe in question was a Nike Air Jordan, he told DX: “Absolutely. That’s all I wore.”
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Alex Thomas, who was the host of Dr. Dre, Eminem, Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg’s classic Up In Smoke Tour, said he wasn’t sure if Jordan was a full-fledged fan of N.O.R.E.’s but that he definitely loved “Nothin’.”
“I don’t know if he was a fan of N.O.R.E. or if he was like every other human being who turned on the TV that year,” Thomas said. “If you were watching BET or MTV, the song played 10 times every day and you saw that video.”
CREDIT: Press/Alex Thomas
Although Thomas was enjoying being recognized more because of the video, not that many people actually knew his real name.
“That video blew up so much muthafuckas thought it was me,” he told DX. “I swear to God, not only did Michael Jordan do that, like literally for the next 10 years of my life, no matter where I would go in the world somebody would go, ‘Tatalalicious! Tatalalicious!’ They were saying it because they didn’t know my name. They figured that was my name … Superstars down to me going to do some jokes in a prison, somebody would go, ‘Tatalalicious!'”
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As for where the term comes from, the comedian said he got the inspiration from a trip to a Chicago strip club sometime around 1998. “I got a lap dance from a big booty chick named Tatalalicious. And it stayed in my head,” he explained. “I didn’t have a joke for it, I didn’t know when I was gonna use it, I just thought that was the funniest fucking name I had ever heard for a stripper.”
Thomas also revealed that another part of the “Nothin'” video, where he’s gasping for breath and having to use an inhaler, was ab-libbed on the spot thanks to the help of an extra on set.
“There just happened to be a fat dude that was two feet away from me, he was an extra in the video, and in between takes I was like, ‘Yo, can I use [your inhaler] real quick just for a prop? Please, just real quick.'” the comedian recalled.
“When I hit it and said: ‘N.O.R.E. know I got asthma.’ That shit ended up being famous. People come up to me, ‘Do you really have asthma?’ People coming up to me like, ‘You should speak for the Asthma People of America,’ and I was like, oh my God. ‘We need you Tatalalicious,’ they’d say. It was crazy.”
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Meanwhile, in other N.O.R.E. news, the rapper-turned-podcaster recently backtracked on extending an invite to controversial media firebrand Andrew Tate for his Drink Champs podcast — and claimed he was “joking” all along.
