Who Are the Sons of Light?

I mentioned the Sons of Light when I was writing about Jae Supreme and 2 Deep not too long ago.  Well, let's take a proper their actual album.  The Sons of Light is his indie Queens, NY group he was pushing but never quite broke out.  This would come after both his 2 Deep period and "I'm a Villain," well into the 90s.  The first time most of us would've heard of them is probably when Jae released his Life's Work compilation last year, which featured two Sons of Light tracks ("Hold Me Down" and "Slash Dot Com").  But there was also a very rare (test pressing only?) 12" from 1996.  And what Heavy Jewelz and Gentleman's Relief Records have put out is essentially the unreleased album that single would've been off of.  I say "essentially," because Heavy Jewelz' Facebook officially describes this as, "the 3 tracks from their impossible-to-find 1996 12", plus 16 more demos and unreleased tracks, mainly from '95-'97."  So I guess this wasn't technically conceived as an album proper, but close enough.

Now, the Sons of Light consists of four members: Jae, Syl Drama, Lord Pharaoh and Chico Son.  That's four guys, but you may've notice there's just three dudes on the album cover.  That's because Jae takes more of a back seat as the producer than one of the main MCs.  He does rap a couple of times on here, on "Who's da Man" (also featuring a guy named Hardy Rock) and "Drinks On Me."  And even from those appearances you can tell, though he's definitely drifted pretty far from "I Didn't Do My Homework," that Jae has a more old school and less edgy style compared to the other members.  It sort of reminds me of MC Serch rhyming on Non-Phixion's first records.  Fans of Jae/ Serch will be happy to hear him and wish for even more contributions, but they'd probably just be holding the group back from finding their newer, younger audiences if they'd insisted on more of a front-facing role. 

Because this is like Jae's Private Investigators; going for a decidedly more gritty, authentic street vibe than when he first came out.  The Sons of Light don't smooth it out as much as someone like Bee Why, but they weren't definitely designed to plug into that pure Queensbridge criminology set.  And they're at their best when they come hardest, on songs like "Get Money" or "Can't Fuck Wit," which actually features Cormega and G.O.D. Pt. III from the Infamous Mobb, and get serious lyrically, like on "Crescent Moon," "flip the script on the government and indict the feds for the murder of Chris Wallace and Tupac Amaru Shakur.  We at war, but what we fightin' for?"  But, while I appreciate their nods to Hip-Hop's roots, like the hook to "Handz In da Air," I could do without some of their material on partying and girls.

When the beats are tight, though, they're on fire; but after a while, they can sound a bit simplistic and loopy.  For example, "Zero Vaccine" uses the same main piano loop as Josh Martinez's "Breakdown," but a direct comparison really makes you appreciate how much more producer Jesse Dangerously did with it than Jae, the beat for "Ya Don't Stop" is a bit irritating "Let it Go"'s heavy use of Teddy Pendergrass's "Love T.K.O." (after songs like KMC Kru's "Let Her Go" and Steady B's "Let It Go") would've been tired even in 1996.  I appreciate the variety in their material on one hand, having an R&B singer do a hook for one song, smooth another out 'till it almost sounds west coast, then switch to an upbeat party song.  "Project Life" is deadly serious, then "Remember When" is a name-dropping ode to the history of Queens rap... like some other songs we've heard, but probably the only one to list 2 Deep as a highlight.

But I think they hurt themselves a bit trying to prove how diverse and versatile they could be, and work best when they stay in their lane.  There's a whole lot of songs on here, and they probably would've made a better impression if they trimmed the fat a bit.  But for us die-hard aficionados, I definitely appreciate the impulse to release everything, since this is probably the last chance heads would ever get to hear it, especially on a proper physical release.  Just think of it as a really tight 12 or 13 track album, with a bunch of bonus cuts mixed in.

And when I say "a lot of songs," how many am I talking about?  Well, it depends which format you cop this one.  There's 19 tracks on the vinyl version (a special edition double LP in a picture cover, limited to just 300 copies): 17 songs, plus 2 instrumentals.  Then there's 20 on the CD (which is limited to only 150 copies).  But it's not quite as simple as the CD having one extra bonus track.  The CD actually has three additional songs: "Project Life," "Keep It Hot" and "Remember When," but loses the two instrumentals.  Finally, there's the cassette, which is super limited to a mere 50 copies and includes 22 tracks, meaning it has everything: all of the songs from the vinyl and CD, including the instrumentals. So, just in terms of track-listing, the tape's the best, but naturally a lot of listeners are going to want this on vinyl.  And all the best songs are on that, so you don't miss out too badly no matter which version you get.

Let's Get 2 Deep, Part 1: Jae Supreme's Kiddie Rap

Look, okay, I know this post is about some easily dismissed kiddie rap.  But hey, I was a kid once, so yeah, I used to rock this stuff and it had an impact on me and probably a lot of people my age.  Like, you know how a couple years ago, DWG discovered Fifth Platoon's killer B-side, "Hallelujah, the Fifth Is Here?"  Well, I'll confess.  The reason I was already up on it isn't because I was the world's greatest digger of the finest, most obscure random rap.  I'd bought that single back in the day for the silly A-side, where they exchange goofy stories about meeting girls on a party line.  "Well, excuse me.  (Excuse who?)  Excuse me.  (Well, who the Hell are you?)  'Ey yo, they call me BooGee.  (And what do you need excusin' for?)  Because I have to speak.  (About who?)  Vanessa.  (Vanessa?)  The light skin freak that I met on the telephone.  (The telephone?)  Yeah, that's the one that won't leave me the Hell alone.  (Oh no!)  She's a tight freak that calls me twenty-five, eight days a week.  (Well, I can't recollect her.)  Man, open your mind.  (Oh yeah, that's the freak that you met on the party line.)"  I just typed all that out from memory, and I could keep going.

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.