#36: Das EFX — Dead Serious (1992)

New York, NY — East West Records

Folks what we got here is the debut effort from a new yorker and a, uh, new jerseyer, who met in Virgina in 1988 during their university days. Going by Dray and Skoob, the two caught the attention of illustrious trailblazers EPMD during a local talent show, which eventually landed them a recording deal and the chance to make it big. They would go on to indeed make it big, with five studio albums made between 1992 and 2003, plus many more singles and features. They’re still active to this day, even though little to no original material has come out in a long time, and, according to Wikipedia, are among the select hip-hop acts that can boast a small but faithful and active cult following. Does their debut album live up to their reputation and the platinum certification it got upon release, though?

Now, this album is not long at all, not even breaking into the forty minute mark. That, among other facts, meant that I had quite a lot of preliminary jams before actually moving on to full-on analysis, with deeper research and lyrics examination. And every single time I listened to this, as soon as it ended, I had the exact same two thoughts, in the same exact order. First I thought, “wow, over already? This is short!”. And then I thought, “wow, I really do not remember much at all from what I spent the last forty minutes listening to!”.

Let’s slightly change the order of business this time around and talk about the beats before we talk about the raps, even though there isn’t even that much to say about them. Wikipedia tells me that his album was entirely produced by a team called Solid Scheme Music, composed of two of Skoob’s high school buddies. It’s pretty clear that the production was handled by the same people from start to finish, for the beats are all very, very similar, almost as similar to each other as they are simple: they all follow a very basic “sampled one-bar loop + steady drum break + scratchy vocal samples during the choruses” structure, with pretty similar samples and little to no variation all throughout. It’s a pretty safe formula if executed correctly, and in here it usually is, but this extreme uniformity is surely a big factor in this sense of monotony all throughout.

How do the raps shape up, though? One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that Dray and Skoob were actually not in close, constant contact with the going-ons of the NY rap scene at that time, and spent most of their time in relative isolation, listening to a limited selection of records (Virginia radio didn’t really play a lot of hip-hop at that time). As such, they were more or less left alone to develop their own style, free from most of the rapidly changing trends in the bustling metropolitan scene.

Their writing is remarkably whimsical and unserious, with a strong penchant for nonsensical little bars and meaningless charades, and, quite ironically considering the album’s title, it is very clear that being fun is way more important for them than being serious — not surprising at all, considering that the rap group they looked up to the most was Brand Nubian. Themes consist mostly of random musings and swaggery bravado (so nothing in particular, really), with but a couple or so incipient little storylines here and there, but the way they work the sounds of the words is pretty impressive, I gotta say. That’s why most of their lyrics can sound nonsensical, because the funkiness that comes from combining the music’s beat and the inherent rhythm of words is what’s under the spotlight here, with coherent stories and lines of thought being relegated to the background. As one can imagine, flow and delivery play an important part in this endeavor as well, and their ability at wordplaying is pretty much unparalelled, filling the lyrics with witty puns that fly around your head like a swarm of butterflies, easily missed but so satisfying when you manage to catch one — one of my favorites is in Straight Out The Sewer, the album’s last track: “Bringin’ funk from crown heights straight to Californi-i-a, b/ See me on the freestyle”.

Now, though, is the time to address a thing that is enormously pervasive in this album, so much that at the time it became sort of the group’s identity, so to speak. It’s something I’ve taken to calling “the giggedy shit”, it’s a thing they do a lot, and it consists in adding whimsical, nonsensical sounds to words, usually stuff like -iddy and -olly (hence the name), with the purpose of enriching every bar as much as possible and bringing rhythmic variation to the flows. Now, being over three decades removed from the release of this record, I do think it is a little dated as a resource, to say the least, but can also take a step back and appreciate how innovative and interesting it must have been at the time — critics just went head over heels about this stuff back then, calling it “hard lyrics that simultaneously perplex, captivate, annoy, and amuse… television-induced, schizophrenic, lyrical wit” and saying that Das EFX had “[merged] pop culture and punchlines, beat poet skat and hip-hop style, and creating a free form lyrical jazz in the process”. But for the love of dog, it does not work that well for me.

See, the thing is that almost every single one of this album’s ten songs (all full tracks, no skits to be found here) is positively riddled with The Giggedy Shit. Worst offender by far is Klap Ya Handz, apparently the duo’s first recorded song and their biggest success at the time:

Troop, I got the hoolahoop, baby woop, dooby-doo
Lassie boy, you made a mess, now go and get the pooper scoop
Oops, I wibble-wobble-wobble-wee while I make
But hocus-pocus and yippy-yi-yo, yay for Dray and…
[…]
Well uhh, woopty doody, abba doozy, it’s time
I’m on the yabber dabber, scribber scrabber, shimmy sham flam
So, heavens-to-betsy, golly wolly, gee whiz
My lickity split got splat, the diddly squat was hot

Like, come on dude, surely that’s just too much now, isn’t it? Of course, I won’t try to hide the fact that I cherrypicked an especially giggedy-intense stretch, but the average Dead Serious verse does not lag too far behind this in giggedy density. Apparently it was devised by the two as a device that allows for cramming more syllables into a given bar, as well as enriching the flows with the illusion of rapidly, constantly changing speed and cadences. And I mean, I can get behind that! I totally can! An isolated song or two off of Dead Serious is good fun, light and all, something you’d be pleased to hear on the radio or at a house party or whatever. But forty minutes of nigh-identical songs, filled to the brim with repeting instances of a trick that inevitably gets old sooner or later and becomes little more than an annoyance…

I guess it relates to something I was saying in my De La Soul review a few months back. The early 90s were an era when the concept of a hip-hop album wasn’t fully realized yet, meaning that more often than not, and I’m gonna quote my guy once again, what you’d get was more like “…a collection of tracks [that] didn’t work all that well yet as an album in terms of sequencing”, which is absolutely what we have here in our hands. I’ll give Das EFX the benefit of doubt and say that this is not a record you’re supposed to really have a sit-down with and appreciate in its entirety, but rather something you just put on whenever and vibe to. Like, just pick a track at random and you’re likely to have a pleasant couple of minutes, if nothing else. You can get lost in the intricate web of references and puns they build, for sure, if you’re so inclined and prepared to wade through the veritable masses of Giggedy Shit to be found, but ultimately this is just an album to have some light, mindless fun to, whenever and however that is for you.

Favorite tracks

Jussummen: I will admit that the cheeky little Slick Rick sample is a big part of why I liked this one, but the beat is also one of the best in this joint and the clever rhymin’ and line punchin’ is at an all time high here. Random nonsense is par for the course, but it actually comes together pretty well and is not overbearing at all. “Well I’m the jibber jabber, jaw like Shabba/ Ranks making bank, operating like Trapper […] Yiggity yes, back up, I just come like Shaka/ Zulu, I pop like Orville Redenbacher/ When I’m proper, I dibbity dibble dabble wit my winnings/ I drop a Def Jam as if my name was Russell Simmons”

Dum Dums: Even with the cool Otis Redding sample the beat is kinda boring, but the fact that they actually tell a whole ass story definitely sets this one apart. Witty wordplay is still here, but now organized around a fun, silly little story about trying to score with a girl but feeling insecure rather than being the shit and sexing every broad you want, which is also a nice changeup in the common rap lexicon. “She had loot, moms and pops dukes had the bank ‘n’/ She walked around school and the stunt would act stankin/ This young miss only dated older fellas/ My slang couldn’t hang, no thang, I wasn’t jealous of her […] Oh yeah, where was I? Bustin, now I’m ready/ Now it’s ’87 and Miss Thing is goin steady/ She was schoolin, chillin ’cause her man was makin papers/ Tellin all her friends that these niggas caught the vapors”.