365 Days of Song Recommendations: Oct 5
Uptown Anthem — Naughty By Nature
Close your eyes — but keep reading. Read/breathe through your eyelids like Nuke Laloosh. Just spiritually fucking close your eyes. Imagine a world where movies about the black experience frequently appeared at your local multiplexes — that they were part of the pop culture zeitgeist. Imagine a world in which major artists produced new songs, legitimate quality tracks, for these movie soundtracks. Picture teenagers of all colors flocking to Record Town to purchase these soundtracks — soundtracks that fueled interest in the movie their parents probably kinda told them they couldn’t see in the theater.
But they went anyway, because the theater policing of age-related ratings policies were managed by teenagers who didn’t give a fuck.
After the critical and relative commercial success of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989), the box office witnessed a surge of stories about black Americans made by black Americans. John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood (1991), Mario Van Peebles’ New Jack City (1991), Ernest K. Dickerson’s Juice (1992), the Hughes Brothers’ Menace II Society (1993).
Arguably the greatest hip-hop soundtrack of the era was Juice (I would have also accepted Judgment Night and Trespass). Naughty By Nature’s “Uptown Anthem” sets the table for the incredible slate of artists and tracks to follow on Juice — Eric B & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Too $hort, EPMD, Cypress Hill…
The crossover popularity of “O.P.P.” and “Hip Hop Hooray” often mitigates the New Jersey’s trio’s hardcore status as one of the great rap acts of the 1990s. Treach, Vin Rock and DJ Kay Gee didn’t fall squarely into that East Coast style. They were as much Eric B. & Rakim as they were 2Pac or the Geto Boys, using both laid back instrumentals and complex lyrical rhyme schemes and aggressive beats and sampling.
Rarely elevated among rap’s greatest emcees, Treach should also have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He lacked the flash and bombastic delivery of some of his contemporaries. Treach’s effortless flow distracted from his precision. “Uptown Anthem” showcases both states of Treach and Naughty By Nature’s bi-coastal influence.
A minor-key piano riff followed by a beat drop. Treach jumps in with a complicated opening volley. Rapid fire rhyme followed by an almost syncopated delivery of the second line before immediately returning to a tongue-twister that would destroy any average emcee.
Hey, you could smoke a spliff with a cliff /
But there’s still no mountain high enough, or wide enough to touch /
The naughty nappy nasty nigga the nasty trashy hoe happy pappy /
That’s Happy to be Nappi
Not to be totally upstaged, however, Vin drops one of the song’s most infectious rhymes during the middle verse:
You’re chillin’ with a titty-feelin’ villain /
Steppin’ to the puny, puddy punks catchin’ feelings /
I hit so many guts, call me gutter, I’m the bread and butter
In the end, though, it’s Kay Gee’s unforgettable beat and production that makes “Uptown Anthem” the best of Naughty By Nature’s catalog, a song that was specifically recorded for a soundtrack and not their self-titled 1991 album. (Though it was included as a tacked on final track on later releases of the record. My copy — I checked — does not include “Uptown Anthem,” which feels like a bit of street cred.)
If you’re still imagining like I told you, keep thinking on the current hip-hop culture. (Ugh.) Is this still a world in which a new, commercially successful rap group coming off a hit single like “O.P.P.” could ever contribute an original song to a movie soundtrack? If it seems unbelievable, it is. The rules of the game have changed — and it never really happened outside the 1990s. I question so much of the terrible aspects of the 1990s music and fashion that seem to be popping up again in the 2020s (high waisted acid-wash jeans? bands influenced by Blink-182 and Sublime?), but unfortunately we seem to have left the best stuff behind.
“Uptown Anthem” is the 279th song on the exclusive #365Songs playlist!
