— William Shaw
It was 1968 and pop music was going through yet another sea change. The Beatles released the so-called White Album. The Byrds put out the influential Sweetheart of the Rodeo. The Beach Boys delivered Wild Honey at the tail end of the '67 and followed it with Friends, both of which had dialled back from the days of 'pocket symphonies' "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations". The Kinks offered up The Village Green Preservation Society, their highly unsuccessful...
Wait, did I already go into all this? That's right, just last week I was going on about how the predominance of acid rock in the late-sixties had been exaggerated, especially given the fact that seemingly everyone at the time was doing against the supposed tide of psychedelic pop. This I then connected to rap having a reputation for being all about showing off and gold medallions and fancy cars and stuff when in actual fact most of the big names were busy creating hip hop records that dealt with a wide-variety of topics. Last week, comical hippies De La Soul proved they could be serious and fly in the face of all that rap posturing and this time it's the turn of a young man named David Guppy, who wished for everyone to Do the Right Thing.
De La Soul were part of a loose scene of playful hip hop artists who sampled from all kinds of sources, looked like hippies and appeared to be in it for a laugh. Other notable progressive rappers (aka The Daisy Age) included Monie Love, The Jungle Brothers and Dream Warriors (all of whom will be featured before long on this blog). Guppy and his mates (ie Redhead Kingpin & The F.B.I.) were not in this camp. They were as earnest as Chuck D but without his in-your-face attitude and forceful raps. Their music seemed to epitomize the idea of rap having a "message", one that was meant to be deep and meaningful. Stay away from drugs. Find alternatives to violence. Finish school. Respect yourself. All very noble and well-intended.
But is "Do the Right Thing" any good? Well, it's not bad and, as William Shaw says, the Kingpin has a facility with rolling verses off the tongue that not everyone can replicate. It doesn't exactly plant itself in the mind but at least I can get through the whole thing without turning it off. Not much of a recommendation but in a year with some extraordinary rap and house records, it's a surprisingly plain effort without much to make it stand out from the pack. Curiously, it's only the single's understated modesty that gives it a unique quality but that wouldn't suffice to make it a truly memorable cut. Getting that message out seemed to ensure that the quality of the music would be secondary. It's as if we're not even meant to enjoy it.
Guppy steered clear of the bling and boasting about what a righteous dude he was but "Do the Right Thing" is still something of a throwback. While Shaw praises the music — it "swings along with devil-may-care jollity — there's even an accordion twiddling away there" — it is unfortunately dragged down by an over-reliance on samples that were already cliches by the end of the eighties ("ah yeah" and "check this out" were they were both so 1987). Top DJ's of the time were able to utilize tried and tested bits of other records effectively in creating fresh works of their own but the Redhead's F.B.I. was not up to the task. A little Daisy Age fun would have been a welcome addition but I imagine it would have threatened to diminish the message — and you can't have that.
"Do the Right Thing" was supposed to be used in the influential Spike Lee picture of the same name but it got dropped prior to the film's release. (Rather unjustly, they didn't even bother to include it on the accompanying soundtrack album though it would eventually appear in Wes Craven's The People Under the Stairs, which couldn't have been much of a consolation prize) Nevertheless, it became a Top 20 hit in Britain in the summer of 1989. This success would be fleeting but Redhead Kingpin will be back in this space soon enough. I just hope he didn't further sacrifice a good record in favour of his "message". We'll see.
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Also of some cop
Gloria Estefan: "Don't Wanna Lose You"
Miami Sound Machine → Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine → Gloria Estefan (Wendy James sure called it back at the end of 1988, didn't she?)
Easing her way into a "solo" career was probably a good strategy. Singles from final group album Anything for You were slow to take off in Britain and there wasn't much of a gap between "Can't Stay Away from You" and "comeback" "Don't Wanna Lose You". Two slow songs in a row went against the ver Sound Machine's policy of alternating between a weepie and a Latin dancefloor stormer but they seemed to get away with it all right. Estefan could sometimes be guilty of overdoing it on the vocal front but she does a commendable job of keeping her pipes in check. Earlier "ballads" could never quite measure up to the faster numbers but "Don't Wanna Lose You" placed her firmly in the realm material for teenagers awkwardly slow dancing. Adolescent lust had come roaring in and you can bet we didn't want to lose it.
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