Backspin: EPMD — Strictly Business (1988)

With their funk fueled debut, EPMD embodied the east and laid a blueprint for the west. (90/100)

I was introduced to EPMD by my friend from New Jersey by way of their 1988 debut, Strictly Business. I always looked forward to his bi-annual visits with his father, because with him would come the latest sounds out of New York, usually months before they penetrated the go-go bubble that encapsulated the my DC region. I wore out my dubbed copy of Strictly Business because to me it epitomized the New York swagger that made golden era hip-hop so alluring.

Years later, I was schooled on its seismic impact by the Californians I went to college with. Nothing sums up the contrasts that defined the Long Island duo better than the trajectory of this album, which initially shook up the tri-state area with its quintessential New York aesthetic, but went on to become even more influential albums on the west coast thanks to its embrace of freewheeling funk samples. Few acts in hip-hop have made contrasts as captivating as Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith the Microphone Doctor. Few albums are as timelessly infectious as their 1988 debut.

Seminal releases from ’86 and ’87 leaned heavily on James Brown’s catalogue, leveraging the precision and crispness of his drum breaks to spotlight the evolutions in flow and delivery pioneered by virtuosic “new school” MCs like Rakim and KRS-One. As MCs, Erick and Parrish embodied the “business” moniker omnipresent in their album titles, rhyming with a blue collar efficiency. Their virtuosity was in the production. Just as funk bands of the ‘70s built upon Brown’s rhythmic foundation to take black music from the urgent immediacy of the now to the boundless possibilities of the future, EPMD represented a quantum leap forward in the sonic landscape of hip-hop as it prepared to transition from its late ’80s foundational era to its ’90s Renaissance.

“You now enter a dimension called the Twilight Zone,” Parrish warns early on the opening title cut. That’s pretty much what it feels like the first time EPMD’s futuristic brand of funk engulfs you - especially for listeners who were there in ’88 to experience the evolution from, say, Eric B. and Rakim’s rhythmic minimalism to Erick and Parrish’s thick aural gumbo in real time. “Strictly Business” begins like a new life force emerging from a big bang, and quickly launches into a high speed chase through a video arcade version of outer space. The wah-wah boogie of Eric Clapton’s “I Shot the Sherif” is transformed into a propulsive backdrop for the two MC’s to lay down their no frills braggadocio.

Erick opens the track with his now legendary lazy tongued delivery. On paper, it shouldn’t work. His slow flow lags well behind the brisk beat, and his words slur into one another, making some bars hard to decipher. Yet, it’s transfixing. He sinks into the crevices of the track like gravy on mashed potatoes, adding to the record’s sonic density. Parrish proves the perfect counterpoint, his crisp couplets landing percussively in the pocket. Even as hip-hop continued to evolve through subsequent decades, few album openers succeeded in establishing the sonic motifs of a project while elevating the pulse rate of its listeners the way “Strictly Business” does.

“I’m Housin’” keeps the tempo high, looping Aretha Franklin’s unrelenting “Rock Steady.” The juke joint grind of the bass and guitar draw the ear, but it’s actually the jitter of the drums that gives EPMD’s re-imaging its edgy momentum. It’s a mystery that the song didn’t have the staying power of the album’s other singles. It’s arguably the most danceable track. It’s also a mesmerizing example of the back-and-forth interplay between the two MCs that positioned them as the heirs apparent to Run-DMC, but became less prominent in their later work.

“Let the Funk Flow” is a sticky swamp of funk, and the album’s most explicit lyrical embrace of that genre. Paradoxically enough, it’s actually built off a loop from The J.B.’s. It speaks to the crate digging acumen of EPMD that they found a rare moment of psychedelia from Brown’s house band. The sample was used several times subsequently, but never packed the same punch. That’s partially due to Erick and Parrish’s roughneck rhymes grounding the spacier flourishes, but also a credit to the meticulous care paid to the mixing and mastering of the track. While the horns are clearly the star in all of their iterations, the bass just seems to rumble a little heavier, the drums to slap a touch crisper than on most records from the era.

The album hits its apex as the A Side soars to a close with the iconic one-two punch of “You Gots to Chill” and “It’s My Thing.” In many ways, the former set the template for the signature sound that would define EPMD and their Hit Squad (and later Sermon’s Def Squad) affiliates for the next ten years: a primordial ooze of funk juxtaposing crisp drums against cascading layers of cosmic slop that test every frequency in your speakers. While cohorts like Redman and Keith Murray would later leverage Sermon’s futuristic soundscapes to propel their intricately innovative lyricism, Erick and Parrish wield the weight of the track’s low end to deliver blunt force trauma:

[Erick] Relax your mind, let your conscience be free And get down to the sounds of EPMD Well you should keep quiet while the MC rap But if you tired, then go take a nap Or stay awake and watch the show I take Because right now, I’m ‘bout to shake’n’bake The E-R-I-C-K is my name, I spell Thanks to the clientele, yo I rock well I’m not an MC who talking all that junk About who can beat who, sounding like a punk I just get down and I go for mine Say, “Check one, two”, and run down the line

[Parrish] To the average MC I’m known as The Terminator Funky beat maker, new jack exterminator Destroy and employ, when your rhymes are not void Never sweating your girl (why P?) Cause she’s a skeezoid When I’m on the scene I always rock the spot I grab the steel with the crown on top In the beginning, I like to let my rhymes flow And at twelve I press cruise control Sit back and relax, let my rhymes tax Maintain MC’s while the Double E max Always calm under pressure, no need to act ill Listen when I tell you boy, you gots to chill

Comparatively, “It’s My Thing” is an exercise in reduction. The barebones break beat from The Whole Darn Family’s “Seven Minutes of Funk” provides the backdrop. Vocal samples from Syl Johnson and Long Red provide periodic exclamation points amid Erick and Parrish’s monotone flows. The minimalism during the verses builds to a sonic eruption on the chorus, courtesy of the pristine string section from Marva Whitney’s 1969 hit of the same name. All of the samples have since become staples. Jay-Z and The Alkaholiks later crafted their own classics by flipping “Seven Minutes” of funk nearly identically to EPMD.

Strictly Business loses a little momentum after the flip. It would be hard not to after a near perfect A-side. Still, the B-side features a couple of classics in the Steve Miller sampling “You’re a Customer,’ and the industrial tinged “Get Off the Bandwagon.”

Even the lesser tracks hold up pretty well. “The Steve Martin” jauntily deploys an Otis Redding sample as the inspiration for a new dance based on the comedian’s spastic movements. While the notion of goofy dances may elicit eye rolls from the trap generation, Erick and Parrish’s excursion adds a touch of levity to the album’s hardcore aesthetic. Dropping smack in between Joe Ski Love’s “Pee Wee Dance” and Digital Underground’s “Humpty Dance,” it hardly felt out of place at the time.

A fairly straight forward recounting of a one-night stand, the album closing “Jane” now feels quaint compared to later installments in what would become hip-hop’s longest running soap opera until Empire. Yet, the gender dynamics, in which Jane bounces in the morning and leaves a note clowning Parrish for his underwhelming performance, are a refreshing reversal in a hip-hop landscape still centered in machismo.

To a listener just now experiencing Strictly Business for the first time, the album’s innovation may not be inherently obvious. Nearly every break and loop has become standard, bordering on cliche in hip-hop and other sample based genres. But make no mistake, Strictly Business is to production what Eric B. and Rakim’s Paid in Full was to MCing: the unveiling of the future. As hip-hop continued to strengthen its foothold outside of New York, it was the electro-funk bounce of EPMD that laid the groundwork for watershed acts in California and the Midwest far more than Public Enemy’s “wall of sound” or the jazz fueled melodies of the Native Tongues.

For the two “business” men out of Long Island, art, innovation, and cultural influence were all in a day’s work.

By the Numbers

Production: 9.5 Lyrics (how the words are put together): 7.5 Delivery & Flow: 8 Content (Substance): 7.5 Cohesiveness: 9.5 Consistency: 9 Originality: 9 Listenability: 10 Impact/Influence: 10 Longevity: 10

Total — 90

Next

Previous

Backspin is a look back at the albums that shaped and defined hip-hop. It explores what made them resonate, the impact they had on the culture, and where they fit in today’s ever-expanding hip-hop canon.