Epmd Unfinished Business Full Album

[Enrique Fats]

Ithink the problem with EPMD is that they weren\u2019t a distinct voice, or even made up of distinct voices (as in, I have trouble telling the two apart). Even in the microcosm of 1988, the year their debut dropped, they had to contend with Big Daddy Kane and Eric B. & Rakim defining and then perfecting speed and flow on Long Live the Kane and Follow the Leader, N.W.A.\u2019s Straight Outta Compton, Public Enemy\u2019s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and Slick Rick\u2019s The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick. (Lot of classics\u2026 and then that Slick Rick album.)

As rappers, Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith aren\u2019t comparable to Kane or Rakim on the microphone, nor do they exude a \u2018force of nature\u2019 akin to Ice Cube or Chuck D. And they embarrass themselves when they try to tell a story in a verse. Moreover, as the years went on, both were prone to corny one-liners: \u201CNo missions impossible ask Tom Cruise,\u201D \u201CI transform like Spawn,\u201D \u201CI take action, like film crews.\u201D (Typically speaking, if Erick Sermon is setting up a simile, you bet your ass it\u2019s gonna land with a thud.) So in the void of anything particularly commanding about either of them, they just rode the groove with a slow flow and were hip-hop\u2019s friendlist group until they were outclassed by De La Soul and they stopped being so friendly.

Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith were both born in 1968, which makes them 19 at the time they were making Strictly Business, and despite their youth and despite a lack of technical know-how (at the time of making debut single \u201CIt\u2019s My Thing,\u201D Sermon admitted in an interview that he had no idea what a sampler or a producer was; \u201C[w]e didn't know what a producer was. We thought everyone on the radio made their own records. We thought every record you heard on the radio was made by that artist\u201D), they learned quick and made an incredible-sounding and fresh record. I also respect that Sermon made a point not to rely on the usual time-tested funk/soul samples (\u201CWhile the world was sampling James Brown, we was over here venturing out on something that was other. We sampled some other type of shit\u201D), even if that only basically amounts to one Eric Clapton sample on this record, it still yielded them a great hook even if they had to paid for it later. Still, the Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin samples go a long way.

The album is front-loaded, sure, although hip-hop historians will like the fact that DJ Premier took the drums off \u201CYou\u2019re a Customer\u201D for \u201CMass Appeal\u201D and MF DOOM nabbed a single line from the deadly-dull closer \u201CJane\u201D for \u201CHoe Cakes\u201D (\u201CJane\u201D even has a skit about how the record was about to end but then they wanted to make a song about some ex which ended up being a thread throughout each of their albums moving forward). That said, \u201CThe Steve Martin\u201D is the best song on the second side and not to be missed, a hooky little thing thanks to the indelible Otis Redding horn sample. As for the other two songs there, \u201CGet Off the Bandwagon\u201D is the only song here which has \u2018aged poorly\u2019 thanks to its electro beat that probably didn\u2019t even sound good in 1988, and then \u201CD.J. K La Boss\u201D lets the scratcher with the same name go at it for 4 minutes (enthralling for the first few times you hear it).

Unfinished Business (1989) is a sophomore slump, which I attribute to the fact that there seems to be less fire beneath their feet now that they\u2019ve made it. Hey, it happens to rappers. And while they got a surprisingly large amount of mileage for the business puns in their album titles (this album, Business as Usual and Back in Business being their best titles for the context they came in), they perhaps also inadvertently revealed an unwillingness to break away from what became a formula.

As mentioned, 1989 saw breakthroughs in sampling elsewhere in the east coast but EPMD are content to churn out another Strictly Business. Okay, yes, there is something new in \u201CYou Had Too Much to Drink,\u201D but that\u2019s also the worst track on the album, a weird mix of house keyboard chords and rap-rock blistering guitar but with a Good Message (don\u2019t drink and drive). Elsewhere, Smith continues his AIDS streak (weird line, I know) on \u201CWho\u2019s Booty\u201D: \u201CI had to cover my nose, not to ruin the mood / Because I knew I wasn't fishing but I smelled seafood / Smelled like shrimp or lobster, or tuna of the sea / And it wasn't worth catching the A to I to D to the S oh yes / The S is for safe sex,\u201D which is just unfortunate all around. (Shame because the parts that lead up to it about how he\u2019s the microphone doctor are funny.) The only truly great song of the bunch is \u201CPlease Listen To My Demo\u201D with its eerie sample and humbling storytelling (as opposed to storytelling about women), and they get a point for sampling David Bowie for the closer.

Sermon\u2019s beats on Business as Usual (1990) are denser; there\u2019s more to sink your teeth into, but it also marks the beginning of EPMD\u2019s far less interesting turn towards being \u2018hard\u2019 above all else; the titles of the opening salvo go like this: \u201CI\u2019m Mad,\u201D \u201CHardcore,\u201D \u201CRampage,\u201D \u201CManslaughter,\u201D and all this culminates in the fifth song, where they beat and rape a trans person for the simple fact that they were a trans person. EPMD will have a lot of bad songs moving forward, but it\u2019s hard to think of any that are as morally repulsive as \u201CJane 3.\u201D Hard to think of any song as morally repulsive. (Worth noting is that they also compare themselves to Bruce Jenner while doing all this.) In this context, do I feel sorry that RZA took the sample for \u201CBrother not a Jock\u201D and turned it into a better beat for \u201CDaytona 500?\u201D Fuck no.

Business Never Personal (1992) contains their biggest hit in \u201CCrossover,\u201D which reached #42 on the Billboard Hot 100, an ironic achievement since the song admonishes rappers crossing over while at the same time being the catchiest song they ever penned thanks to the Roger Troutman sample. \u201CI stick to underground, keep the crossover,\u201D they say, hence why they never bothered making a song like crossover again: i.e. a song with lyrics about something specific bolstered by a melodious sample. It\u2019s ultimately off the back of a few dope cuts that allows Business Never Personal to be their second-best album: in addition to \u201CCrossover,\u201D there\u2019s \u201CCan't Hear Nothing But The Music,\u201D which plays like a denser \u201CMicrophone Fiend\u201D with yet another bright sample (Barbara Mason going \u2018Ooh, baby\u2019) and then \u201CHeadbanger\u201D which Sermon made for Ice Cube in mind and you can tell: it\u2019s a lot heavier than EPMD would typically rap over.

Business Never Personal suggested that the end was near with the fact that Jane died in the final song. Had this been EPMD\u2019s discography, it would have been a solid 4-album run but would have still paled in comparison to the 4-album run of contemporary Eric B. & Rakim, whose discography are alphabetically right after EPMD for hip-hop in my Itunes library. Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith never grew up, never even feigned to want to age, which is emblematic of a lot of rappers, sure and partially why so many hip-hop artists struggle to make records in their late careers. By contrast, Rakim actually did grow up: Don\u2019t Sweat the Technique is a surprisingly mature and even graceful record even if it has a few weak beats (it\u2019s a great and underrated record and better than any EPMD record post-Strictly Business).

EPMD officially quit the following year, citing mounting tensions when Smith\u2019s house was burglarized and the intruders said Sermon paid them to do it; probably the craziest break-up story in music that I can think of. Crazier still is the fact that they reunited just four years later after all that. My theory? Parrish Smith wasn\u2019t getting nearly as much bites on his solo career as Erick Sermon, who also had his production work to fall back on. (Sermon tells it differently: \u201C2Pac had died, and then Biggie Smalls had passed away. And while hip-hop was mourning two losses, I figured that an EPMD reunion would be dope.\u201D Either way, money on the table.)

Out of Business (1999) was more prophetic a title than EPMD probably wanted since it was followed by a long hiatus. The ratio of hard posturing to soft braggadocio is no longer even but tipped over with lots of gun talk and stuff like Parrish Smith calling you a \u2018punk faggot crab emcee.\u2019 As well as Erick Sermon saying \u201CSucka duck, I do what I feel right now\u201D which probably sounded different in his head and is not totally unlike Mobb Deep (Prodigy)\u2019s \u201CYour shit's weak, your best song was mediocre / Fuck a penis\u201D from that same year. It\u2019s all pretty humourless so you gotta sneak in a laugh wherever one can. Beats-wise, \u201CSymphony\u201D is good but not good enough to hear twice, and I like the dusty little guitar line of \u201CDraw\u201D but you gotta wait 90 seconds to hear it. Ultimately, just another baddie in what was a very confusing year for hip-hop with just failure after failure from almost everyone on the east coast.

We Mean Business (2008) followed after a lengthy gestation period and that EPMD enlist so much outside help suggests that they had trouble making a relatively short album\u2019s worth. Almost every song has a feature that outshines either of them (especially Raekwon and Method Man, even if the latter talks about farting in his own shoes), while production wise, some of the beats are outsourced, including a surprisingly stiff 9th Wonder joint. The album is totally graceless, and similar to how Unfinished Business was happy to pretend it was still 1988 or Back in Business felt like 1993, the only sign that We Mean Business is from 2008 is the Skyzoo verse, because otherwise, it\u2019s straight out of 1999. Parrish Smith\u2019s \u201CEPMD is a corporation it's not its the group\u201D is emblematic of the effort put in (he couldn\u2019t be bothered finessing that to make sense or sound good?). Best/worst couplet, from Keith Murray (capitalization for effect but that is how he reads the line anyway): \u201CAnd that ain't GANGSTA that is WANKSTA / Went to jail and the HOMO SHANKED YA.\u201D Yeah, I got nothing.

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