Songfacts®:

• "Swass" is a word Sir Mix-A-Lot made up to mean fly or cool. He explained the origin in an interview with Magnet Magazine: "Back in the '80s, I worked at a little arcade called Electric Palace. There was this one pinball machine that uttered some crazy word that sounded like 'swass.' I don't know what it was saying. Anyway, I decided to do a song called 'Swass' as a joke."
• After the song was released, Mix-A-Lot decided "Swass" was an acronym for "Some Wild Ass Silly S--t."
• "Swass" is the title track to Sir Mix-A-Lot's 1988 debut album, which he released on his own label, Nastymix. He wrote and produced all the songs on the album himself.
• The song wasn't released as a single, but the Swass album went Platinum, selling over a million copies in America. In 1991 he landed a deal with Rick Rubin's record label, Def American Recordings, which re-released the album along with his second album, Seminar from 1989. In 1992 he released his third album, Mack Daddy, with the culture-shifting "Baby Got Back." This made Mix-A-Lot ubiquitous, but only hip-hop fans knew that he was already a Platinum-selling rapper and not a one-hit wonder.
• In 2005 the Pussycat Dolls had a huge hit with "Don't Cha," which uses the vocal melody from Mix-A-Lot's hook:
  
  Don't you wish your boyfriend was swass like me
  
  The Dolls made it:
  Don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?
  Don't cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?
  
  Sir Mix-A-Lot got a writing credit on the song along with Cee-Lo Green, who composed it.