Mark Calderon of Color Me Badd Talks I Love The 90’s Tour, Lip Sync Battle, Taylor Swift and More
WHAT: I Love the 90’s Tour featuring: Vanilla Ice, Salt-N-Pepa, Color Me Badd, Tone Loc, Coolio and Rob Base
WHERE: Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall
WHEN: Saturday 11/5
The I Love the 90’s Tour makes a stop at Atlantic City’s historical Boardwalk Hall on 11/5, and Mark Calderon from the popular group Color Me Badd chats with Explore NJ’s Entertainment Reporter Whitney Ullman about everything from being back on tour to pranking Salt-N-Pepa’s dancers.
Check it out…..
EXPLORE NJ: We are excited to have you guys here at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall for the I Love the 90’s tour, how does it feel to be in town?
COLOR ME BADD: We’re very excited. Very, very excited. It’s time that we get back to Atlantic City. This show has been just amazing, and you know what, everyone’s going to have a great time. It’s a big party. You see just people going back down memory lane, and it’s all good. All good. Every act.
Tell us about the tour? Who are some of the acts that you’ve never met before, but were excited to get to know?
COLOR ME BADD: Let me see. Tone Loc. I’ve never met Tone Loc before. When I was in high school, I was dancing to his music, and it’s such a pleasure to now know him and the music he’s created. It was a weird kind of thing because I was actually a little starstruck meeting him.
Really?
COLOR ME BADD: Yes, because I used to dance to his music all the time, and come to find out, one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. We talked about it. He’s that guy that, whenever he’s at a restaurant or something, when he leaves a tip, he over tips these people. He has that kind of heart where he’s like, “Here, here’s a little something…He’s always tipping. That’s the thing. He’s a big tipper, which is cool.
That’s really cool.
COLOR ME BADD: Yes, it is. I always believed when you give, it always comes back to you like that in other ways. It may not be money, but in other ways, good things always come back.
Yes. I agree 100%. So tell me a fun behind the scenes story?
COLOR ME BADD: I don’t know. Hold on, let me think about that one. You know what? I have to say on this tour, no one’s really doing any pranks like that. I don’t know if we’ve grown out of that or not, but I don’t know. We tried to do it one time with some of Salt N Pepa’s dancers, and it was funny, just scaring them under the table or something crazy like that. I tell you when we’re having a lot of fun, is after the show, we’ll have these after parties where there will be a particular club that we all go hang out in and everyone just has a great time. Throughout the night, they’ll just be playing more ’90s music, and you get to actually talk to some of the fans and hang out with them, take pictures.
That’s awesome! Speaking of fans, in the news recently, Actress Amber Tamblyn performed your song “I Wanna Sex You Up”, dressed as Donald Trump during her performance on Lip Sync Battle. What are your thoughts on that?
COLOR ME BADD: Someone told me about it, and I had to go online and look it up. I saw it and thought it was just hilarious. It was good. It was just funny… When stuff like that happens, you look at it as, “You know what? They’re talking about us. They’re singing about us on national television.” All publicity is good publicity in a sense.
True! So circling back to Atlantic City, what do you love most about coming to town and what are you looking forward to doing while here?
COLOR ME BADD: We were there last winter in Atlantic City, and did a show with Tony! Toni! Toné! What was cool about Atlantic City was this beautiful, white fedora hat that I bought and I lost, so I’m going back to Atlantic City to look for this hat…I found the hat on the boardwalk and I have no idea whether I’ll ever find this hat again, but I lost it in Japan. I loved that hat.
Plus, I actually got a chance to go out and jog in Atlantic City. I can’t even remember what hotel we were at, but there was an indoor pool with a bar, and at night time, they would turn it into a night club.
Yes! That’s at Harrah’s. I go there all the time.
COLOR ME BADD: Yes, exactly. We were there and really enjoyed our time.
Are there any artists right now that you think are amazing?
COLOR ME BADD: Yes. I love Bruno Mars. I love Taylor Swift…I think that they’re great. I love the music that they write. I like the funk that Bruno Mars is bringing, especially with that new single that he has. I like Taylor Swift because she’s not the greatest singer, but she knows her lane. She knows her market. She knows who to write songs for, and when you’re an artist, you’ve got to know who you are as an artist, and that’s what makes her worth. She’s got great songs and she carries herself well, so I really like her a lot, and I know my kids like her, too.
Is there anything else you would like to tell your fans?
COLOR ME BADD: Just thank them for all the support over the last 25 years. It’s incredible that we get a chance to relive that era again. We’re having a blast. We’re having a great time out here, just as much as the audience is having. We get a chance to go see the country, and from my understanding, it’s possible that we could be taking this overseas next year probably, so we’re getting to travel again and having fun singing these records and songs… It’s a blast seeing everyone just dancing and kind of taking them back to high school days.
