Within the late Nineteen Eighties, third Bass have been thought to be the Def Jam label’s subsequent “great white hopes.” Nonetheless, reductively assigning emcees the caliber of MC Serch and Prime Minister Pete Good roles primarily based purely on pigment (or lack thereof) was at all times a little bit of a purple herring. Although outwardly one thing of an odd couple – Serch of the hi-top Jewfade, nerd glasses, and hyper dance strikes; Pete, the cool buyer along with his mack daddy fits and cane – each have been merchandise of NYC’s grassroots hip-hop circles, with the talents to show it. Thus the duo was much more aesthetically aligned with Rakim-era vernacular and flows than, say, the Beasties Boys’ authentic school-inspired hijinks. For Serch and Pete, credibility inside the neighborhood was paramount. It’s this actual time technique of proving theirs, whereas brandishing outsized chips on their shoulders, that gives a number of the finest moments of their traditional debut, The Cactus Album.
For anybody who didn’t get the memo, “Sons of 3rd Bass” positions them in no unsure phrases because the anti-Beasties. “Counterfeit style, born sworn and sold out with high voice distorted / If a Beast’ll wish play fetus, I’d have him aborted,” Pete rhymes with nimble disdain. Tempering their venom, nevertheless, is an undeniably playful sound – primarily based round samples from Blood Sweat & Tears’ pop hit “Spinning Wheel” and snippets from an Edgar Bergen ventriloquism educational report (“Throw that weak joke out!”). “Wordz of Wizdom” takes one other tack: It’s six minutes of pure rhyming bliss that slyly acknowledges white rapper baggage (Serch: “Not righteous, but might just, make you wanna listen / Yo I’m Elvis with the wordz of wizdom”) over a patchwork of “Amen Brother” drums, Gary Wright MOR, and the Scooby Doo theme. Right here and all through, unofficial third member, producer Sam Sever matches Serch and Pete’s lyrical cleverness with invaluable musical wit – tossing sneaky jazz-funk breaks, the Doorways, and even Tom Waits on one ridiculous interlude within the anything-goes spirit of Public Enemy/De La Soul-styled pattern collages.
So it makes full sense that each P.E. beat battalion the Bomb Squad and De La svengali Prince Paul are on the manufacturing helm for the LP’s dynamic singles. The previous infuses its signature frenetic power into “Steppin’ to the A.M.” – a would-be membership anthem that sounds each bit the half. The latter employs an immediately recognizable Aretha Franklin piano, and bulletins from 3 Toes Excessive and Rising pal Don Newkirk in service of “The Gas Face,” the crew’s breakout hit. Conceived as a comical response to all issues wack (together with, within the group’s unsolicited, and in hindsight excessively dogmatic opinion, MC Hammer), its humor is a malicious program for some extra sobering ideas on race and notion by way of Serch: “Black cat is bad luck, bad guys wear black / Must have been a white guy who started all that / (Make the gas face) For those little white lies / My expression to the mountainous blue eyes.” Talking even louder than Serch and Pete’s preoccupation with cultural course correction and authenticity is their choice to highlight their younger protégé on the one – Zev Love X of the group Ok.M.D., ultimately identified to the world as MF DOOM (and right here already in tremendous unorthodox rhyme kind). A phenomenal act of allyship, it’s nonetheless probably the greatest of a number of examples of third Bass being effectively forward of its time.
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