BUSHWICK BILL
phantom of the rapra
FEATURING THE SINGLE
"WHO'S THE BIGGEST"
ALBUM OUT JULY 3
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"Who's The Biggest Produced by Mad and CJ for Mad Mac Productions
Executive Producer, James Smith
©1995 No Trybo Records. Inc.
RECORDS
jas
Urban Dance Squad LUNZ OAKLAND
Things couldn't have gotten much worse for
Urban Dance Squad. Their recording contract
expired and was not going to be renewed, so
they embarked on a year-long quest for a new
label. After being in rehearsal working on new
material and jamming every day they started
thinking that maybe that wasn't the right
approach, so they booked themselves a thirty-
plus date tour and set off on the road. After six
dates, their DJ, DNA, said he wanted to go
home. Guitarist Tres Manos remembers saying.
"What do you mean you want to go home? You
want to go home right now?" And DNA said,
"Yes." They gave him money for the train
home, but as Tres explains. "It was bad timing.
You just don't do that during a tour, you know
it before you go on the road or you do the tour
and come home and announce it. He forced
the four of us to go on the next night. We
bluffed our way through the show and did a
complete new rendering of our songs."
Obviously, there are bad feelings about the
way he exited, but in retrospect, Tres finds that
there was some good in it because it forced
them to get used to the new lineup very quick-
ly. By the time they got back from tour they
had basically accepted the notion of the band
as a four-piece. They tried a few rehearsals
with another DJ, but found they were looking
more to replace a character and that they
could definitely function without a DJ. Since
the replacement DJ didn't seem to have the
right chemistry for the band, they let him go.
Six weeks later they got a call from Virgin/
Holland and they went right into the studio
to record their new album.
Although the band is Dutch, their rapper,
Rude Boy, writes and raps entirely in English.
This may leave him wide open for homophobic
attack on the song "Burned Up Cigarette"
where he refers to DJ DNA as a faggot. Tres
wasn't too happy about his choice of words.
"That's one of the things we discussed internal-
ly when it was first recorded, but Rude Boy
insisted, 'I need this word in this story. You can
say that's only half the answer because if you
need that word, then there's obviously a cer-
tain domain in your head where you keep that
word to judge. It's a very mean song, but his
meaning of the word faggot in that song is
spineless, which is the Dutch meaning of the
word. We have another word for homosexual."
Rude Boy's images may work in Dutch, but if
he's presenting them in English, that's how his
audience is going to take them. Nobody's
going to pull out their Dutch/American pocket
dictionary to see if he means something else.
Lyrical hair-splitting aside, the band's new
lineup fine-tunes their sound. It showcases Tres
Manos' superior sonic guitar skills, which are an
incredible balance of skill and experimentation.
Tres allows his playing to enhance the sound of
the entire band without it coming off as an
exercise in self-indulgence. Meanwhile, bassist
Sylvano and drummer Magic Sticks provide a
strong and deep rhythm section. Persona Non
Grata is the band's strongest album yet and we
can only expect more of the same as they con-
tinue to redefine their sound. -Jennifer Lehrer
OPERATION STACKOLA
Featuring The Single
"I Got 5 On It"
Album Out June 20
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1 Got 5 On It Produced by Tone Capono For
Dollars and Spene Productions,
Executive Producer Eric L Brooks for Noo Trybe Records
and Chris Hicks and Aaaceras J. Pavel for C-Note Records
C-NOTE
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