When the offers of backstage passes and bikini pics started blowing up his phone, Jonathan Nichols knew something was up, writes columnist Nicole Brodeur. 
 
 The first text came not long after Jonathan Nichols got his new phone. 
 
 “Check this guy out,” it said, with a link to a YouTube video of a guy making beats out of a synthesizer. 
 
 It was good, Nichols thought, but couldn’t have been meant for him. He was a law student at Seattle University who had just switched to a local number to prepare for the job search ahead. 
 
 “That’s pretty cool,” Nichols, 33, texted back. “But you clearly have the wrong number.” 
 
 Then he started getting phone calls from luxury-car dealerships — Ferrari, Lamborghini, Jaguar — all asking if a Mr. Anthony Ray would like to come out to the dealership and take one or two of their cars for a spin. 
 
 “I’d love to,” Nichols would tell the very polite salespeople. “But I think you have the wrong guy. I’m a broke law student.” 
 
 Then he started getting pictures of women in bikinis in various states of raunchy repose. So many that Nichols told the sender, “You need to stop.” 
 
 Finally came the day in August when Nichols was at a softball tournament and his phone started “blowing up off the hook.” 
 
 Photos of women with lips pursed. Texts that said “Love you,” and “Happy Birthday.” A photo of a bottle of “Big Bottom” whiskey. More women. More lips and kisses. And one telltale reference to the 1992 rap hit “Baby Got Back.” 
 
 No way, Nichols thought. After the tournament, he and his friends Googled Seattle hip-hop legend Sir Mix-A-Lot. 
 
 His real name? Anthony Ray. 
 
 His birthday? Aug. 12. That very day. 
 
 “That’s when it all made sense,” Nichols, 33, said one recent afternoon. 
 
 The phone number he had picked out at the Verizon store just because it was easy to remember had a previous owner no one could forget: Sir Mix-A-Lot, the man behind “Baby Got Back,” “Posse on Broadway” and founder of Rhyme Cartel Records. 
 
 “Are you serious?” Mix said when I called him — on his new number — to tell him about Nichols. “That is hilarious. Poor fella.” 
 
 He was down in Las Vegas at the International Consumer Electronics Show. A single guy with no kids in Vegas. Sounds fun. 
 
 “Ah, it’s a sausagefest,” he said, clearly disappointed. 
 
 What would he have told Nichols before the technological torch was passed? 
 
 “Don’t check any text messages in front of your wife,” Mix advised. “That would be the first thing. And don’t answer any texts by saying ‘Yes,’ because people take ‘Yes’ differently with me. And usually you end up opening your wallet.” 
 
 Like with the car dealerships. 
 
 “That’s why I’m telling him, ‘Don’t say yes.’ ” 
 
 Nichols, a public-interest attorney with Moriarty and Associates who lives in Magnolia, has been tracking his adventures in Mix-land on his Facebook page. Friends have suggested he start a blog with a sampling of the texts: 
 
 “Hi Ray (Minista) pls info if u attending freestyle explosion and locale details. Thanks in advance.” 
 
 Nichols didn’t respond, then got another text: “O.K. silence got it brush.” 
 
 Another: “What up bro this is SupaSam. I’m having a morning show in-studio Christmas party. I need you to come through!” 
 
 There have also been offers for free concert tickets and visits backstage, which Nichols has found tempting. Why not just show up at the appointed place at the appointed time and see what happens? 
 
 “My boyfriend tells me, ‘Yeah! Get tickets! Get backstage passes!’ But ‘no false representations’ is one of the rules of the bar.” 
 
 Nichols has saved only one voice message, from a woman with a New Jersey area code. He found it on his phone and handed it to me for a listen. 
 
 “This used to be Sir Mix-A-Lot,” a woman says with a smile in her voice. “You get someone calling you talking about they be Snoop Dogg, they really are. Lucky you.” 
 
 Nichols got the new number so he would be local when he started looking for a job. 
 
 But it turned out to be a secret weapon, a way to stand out and be cool by pure coincidence. 
 
 “When interviewers have asked me, ‘What’s something interesting that no one else knows?’ or when people I meet working political campaigns tell me about meeting Bill Clinton, I always say, ‘I have Sir Mix-A-Lot’s old phone number.’ 
 
 “It’s a total mic drop.” 
 
 And one that comes with one very specific responsibility, according to the previous owner. 
 
 “Tell him any really sexy pictures — little in the middle, and if she’s got much back — give them the new number,” Mix said with a laugh, then paused. 
 
 “But not the car dealerships.” ||||| They dialed 1-900-MIXALOT to kick them nasty thoughts — but got this guy instead. 
 
 A Seattle law student was confused when he was suddenly the recipient of raunchy sexts, offers for backstage passes and solicitations from luxury car dealerships after he got a new cell phone number in 2012. 
 
 The messages started coming just days after Jonathan Nichols, an El Paso native, went into a Seattle Verizon store and picked out a new number from a kiosk that would be easy for him to remember. 
 
 Nichols, 33, had recently moved to Seattle to attend law school at Seattle University and wanted a local number. 
 
 SONGWRITER'S SUIT OVER SIR MIX-A-LOT ROYALTIES NIXED 
 
 Jonathan Nichols started received texts intended from Sir Mix-A-Lot when he was a law student at Seattle University. (Courtesy Johnathan Nichols) 
 
 The unusual texts started with links to YouTube videos of up-and-coming hip hop artists, asking someone named “Mix” to “check it out,” Nichols told the Daily News. 
 
 Then calls started coming in from Lamborghini and Ferrari dealerships, asking if someone named “Anthony Ray” was interested in buying a new car. 
 
 “I said, ‘I’m a broke law student right now so I’m not sure I’m who you want’,” Nichols said he told the salesmen. 
 
 He got curious as to who the deep-pocketed former owner of his phone number was. 
 
 “I was just like ‘Oh it’s a guy who has a lot of money, someone who works in hip hop.” 
 
 And it was also someone who got a lot of attention from women who liked to flaunt their backside, judging from some of the racy messages Nichols received with photos from ladies across the country. 
 
 “There were some girls in really short shorts and skimpy tops, obviously turned around showing their big butt,” Nichols said. 
 
 “They would say ‘I know you love us because we got a big butt.” 
 
 It wasn’t until eight months later, on Aug 12th, 2012 — to be exact — that Nichols figured out who the mysterious former owner of his phone was. 
 
 Texts intended for the Seattle based 90s hip hop icon started flooding Jonathan Nichols phone after he changed his number in 2012. (Quantumofficial via YouTube) 
 
 “My phone started blowing up with birthday messages,” Nichols said. But it wasn’t his birthday. 
 
 “And then someone says ‘Happy Birthday Sir Mix A Lot,” Nichols said, to his surprise. 
 
 Nichols and his friends quickly consulted Wikipedia and found out, sure enough, the Seattle native rapper of “Baby Got Back” fame had that very same birthday. 
 
 Nichols was receiving texts meant for Sir Mix-A-Lot, the 90s hip hop icon whose real name is Anthony Ray. 
 
 “I was like, ‘no freaking way!’” Nichols recalled. 
 
 BAHAMAS MAN PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO HACKING CELEBRITIES' EMAILS 
 
 Nichols, who has since graduated law school and now works as an attorney specializing in child welfare at Seattle law firm Moriarty and Associates, embraced the messages with a sense of humor. 
 
 He still gets the occasional request to attend concerts and still receives racy photos. 
 
 “I just have fun with it, what I do is share all the random messages on Facebook, people treat it as a mini-blog,” he laughed. 
 
 Sir Mix-A-Lot got a kick out of it, too. 
 
 “Are you serious?” Ray, now 52, told the Seattle Times, who reached him on his new number and first reported the story. 
 
 “That is hilarious. Poor fella,” he said. 
 
 “Don’t check any text messages in front of your wife,” Ray offered up as advice to Nichols, alluding to the racy text messages intended for him. 
 
 Nichols said he’s been tempted to play along and take advantage of offers to go backstage at concerts but has resisted to protect his legal reputation. 
 
 “I’m an attorney so it would be false representation,” he said. 
 
 Nichols' boyfriend encouraged him to take advantage of offers to go backstage at concerts or get into shows, but he resisted to protect his legal reputation as an attorney. (Courtesy Jonathan Nichols) 
 
 And Nichols, who is gay, has politely turned down the sexy texts, too. 
 
 “I would text back and let them know ‘you’re sending pretty risqué photos of yourself to a complete stranger.’” 
 
 Nichols doesn’t plan on changing his number anytime soon, though. 
 
 “It’s crossed my mind but it’s too funny and too novel and it’s my quirky fact,” he said. 
 
 “For the most part people laugh about it.” 
 
 "Poor fella," Sir-Mix-A-Lot, whose real name is Anthony Ray, told the Seattle Times when he was told that Nichols had his old number. (Kevin Winter)
– What's it like being a famous rapper and noted lover of big butts? One Seattle resident got a little taste when his new phone came complete with Sir Mix-A-Lot's old number. The New York Daily News reports Jonathan Nichols moved to Seattle from El Paso for law school and wanted a local phone number. But when he switched numbers, he started getting everything from offers of backstage passes and homemade beats to sales calls from luxury car dealerships and, of course, photos of women's butts, reports the Seattle Times. “There were some girls in really short shorts and skimpy tops, obviously turned around showing their big butt,” Nichols tells the Daily News. “They would say, ‘I know you love us because we got a big butt.'” Nichols tells the Daily News it took him eight months to figure out whose old number he had, finally solving the mystery thanks to a flurry of incoming messages on Sir Mix-A-Lot's birthday. “I was like, 'No freaking way,’” Nichols says. The Times reports that Nichols has the rapper's sympathy. “Are you serious?” Sir Mix-A-Lot said when told of the story. “That is hilarious. Poor fella.” But he does have some advice as the number's previous owner. “Don’t check any text messages in front of your wife. That would be the first thing," he says. "Tell him any really sexy pictures—little in the middle, and if she’s got much back—give them the new number." Nichols tells the Daily News he has no plans to change his number. “It’s crossed my mind, but it’s too funny." (Even astronauts dial wrong numbers.)