“Pen and Paper” by Stetsasonic
Written by Col. Hector Bravado // June 4, 2007 // Donnyblurbs // 2 Comments
Before he was the producer who put a Daisy Age-sized crater in hip hop with the singular, incomparably playful Three Feet High and Rising for Tommy Boy, before Gravediggaz and Handsome Boy Modeling School, there was a young producer/DJ named Prince Paul who was the DJ and co-producer for a six-man-parade, twelve-pocket-paid outfit called Stetsasonic.
Their 1988 debut, In Full Gear, is an aural bridge between new school and old, stretching old Furious Five tag-team vocals across energetic, layered and sophisticated tracks that are unclassifiable in their era — too don’t-stop-the-rock to hold ground with Yo! Bum Rush the Show and just too damn slick to be lumped in with Whodini and Melle Mel. The whole album’s worth a listen: check out the Kool and The Gang sample of “Who’s Gonna Take the Weight” in the title track, also appropriated by P.E. in “Louder Than a Bomb,” almost the same year. The classics on this: “Sally,” Miami Bass,” “Talkin’ All That Jazz” and most important of all, “Pen and Paper.” The beat is fucking ginormous, full of beyond-itself energy that would have made Eno proud, and crackling with Prince Paul tricks that no other producer of the era had even thought of yet: big backwashes of vocal sound suggestive of a Latin borough at dusk, the canopy full of chattering creatures on stoops; then a catchy bassline, then a top-decibel back-and-forth scratch that that drives every chorus to the brink of the absolutely obnoxious. The song is an homage to the art of rapping and the craft of writing: “I shall begin, introducing my tools/The pen and paper I always use/To put people on the dance floor out on a cruise/ Beyond disco, and rhythm and blues.” MCs Daddy-O, Fruitkwan and Wise build great rhymes about building great rhymes: “Cliches to keep you excited/The pen and paper, that’s how I write it/Dope phrase to keep you hummin’ along/Cliches in the phrase means another def song.” Prince Paul’s thumbprints are on the hottest producer guest shots of the era: “How Not to Get Jerked” from BDP’s Sex and Violence; “No Static at All” from 3rd Bass’ Derelicts of Dialect; and the brilliantly economical thrust of “It’s Hard Being the Kane” from the otherwise embarrassing Taste of Chocolate, the last of Big Daddy Kane’s notable efforts. “Pen and Paper” is the sound of a young genius spreading his wings, full of the jubilation that’s akin, in spirit if not in sound, to some of the weirder jump blues and R&B cuts from the clamorous underbelly of the ’50s — all asses and elbows, stretching for its boundaries and testing its own rules in a swell and spasm of joy. Col. Hector Bravado
From Denver, Colorado
2 Comments on "“Pen and Paper” by Stetsasonic"
Prince Paul is a genius. for those who don’t know, he produced the one and only (that i know of) hip-hop opera album (A Prince Among Thieves). a concept album that takes the hip-hop skit (which Prince Paul helped pioneer with De La Soul) and turns it into the main focus of the album, with songs in between the story line.
Yup. Bad omission on my part. I confess to not having heard it.