Anyway, it may not be a good look now, but as a little kid it was all good. Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina" was the cutting edge topic in grade school classrooms. We played The Fat Boys and kept the volume down so our parents couldn't hear Eazy-E or 2 Live Crew. I still remember being torn because I had Young MC and Gangstarr's first tapes in my hands at the music store, and I couldn't afford both. We would go back and forth over whether "Principal's Office" was better than "Bust a Move" because it was funnier. Plus, I'm from the suburbs, so songs like "Turtle Power" and "Parents Just Don't Understand" were the hits I could talk to the other kids about, because nobody else seemed to be excited about Lakim Shabazz's "Black Is Back." And this was the kind of time when even artists like Craig G had songs like "First Day of School." So yeah. I say all of that just to explain why 2 Deep's 1990 debut, "I Didn't Do My Homework," was a Day 1 must have purchase for me.
Because this is about as cornball kiddie rap as it comes. Like its title says, it's a light-hearted narrative rap about a guy who should've done his homework, but didn't feel like it, and now has to pay the price. The 12" mentions special appearances by West and Will, whoever they are. I'm guessing they're the guys who do the character voices, because during the breaks, we get little skits with "Mrs. Buttercup" chewing out our MC, Jae Supreme, for not having done his homework. It's absolutely Fresh Prince/ Young MC knock-off territory:
"It was a Friday afternoon and the only thing on my mind?
Huh, was having a good time,
At the party tonight. But then I quickly woke up
To the sound of Mrs. Buttercup.
She said, 'okay class, you've been good this week,
So I'm only gonna give you two hundred pages to read
Over the weekend: chapters one through twenty.'
I wasn't laughin', 'cause there was definitely nothin' funny
About staying in the house with my nose in the book.
I was waiting for the joke, the hook.
But she was serious;
I got delirious;
See, I got the same from six classes previously.
There goes the weekend, and all the fun I planned.
How can I get out of this jam?
Missin' one assignment couldn't hurt.
I wonder what would happen...
If I didn't do my homework?"
Oh boy, you'll have to listen to the whole song to find out how this gripping drama ends! Spoiler alert, though: it's never as clever or amusing as the more popular records they're emulating. But maybe you noticed something. Did that name, Jae Supreme, ring a little bell? Maybe you remember a lost Nas classic called "I'm a Villain?" Yeah, this is that Jae Supreme! This is his beginning in the industry, producer and lead rapper of the short lived rap group 2 Deep. He became known for producing a lot for Cormega, and Heavy Jewelz & Gentleman's Relief Records recently recovered his lost 90s album with his crew Sons of Light.
But Jae didn't produce "I Didn't Do My Homework;" some guy named Tuta Aquino did. Don't feel bad if you don't recognize that name. I had to look him up myself; he really wasn't a Hip-Hop guy. This was an exception in his career, which mostly consisted of a lot of dance and pop stuff, including Sinead O'Connor and Duran Duran, and more known for engineering and remixing than production. It's actually not a bad track, though. It's a little too smooth to have been quite the break out crossover hit they were obviously looking for with that song, but it makes it a little easier to revisit this song in 2018 without cringing. In fact, 2 Deep have some really nice cuts by DJ K-Slim on the hook.
So as you can see above, the 12" comes in a full color picture cover and it splits the song into a slightly shorter Radio Edit, the Deep Vocal Mix, and a Kingston Regga Muffin Mix. That last one really isn't as dramatic of a change as it suggests, there's no new reggae-style hook or anything. The instrumental is just a little more reggae influenced and a lot more forgettable. If you've got the album, you don't really need the single for any of these mixes.
Finally, the last song on this 12" is "Simply Done (LP Version)," a posse cut featuring his crew, the S Double R Posse/ Tore Down Posse. The line-up (pieced together from the album's shout outs, since they're never properly credited) are Jae, Enforcer L.D., Troop and Rob Well. Rob Well's the only one of those who seems to have recorded outside of this endeavor - he had a split single with T-Wiz on DNA International that 2 Deep also produced. Anyway, "Simply Done" has a pretty cool, darker groove with backwards drums like a Paris track. They're all going for a fairly similar smooth but hard style, and they each prove rather adept at it. It's not mind blowing, but it's a respectably solid effort and a world away from the preteen targeting material on the A-side that probably pushed away as many potential fans as it attracted. In fact, their whole album turned out to be fairly removed from that kind of stuff. But we'll get into all of that and delve into the less public face of 2 Deep in Part 2.
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