Dead Serious (album)
Encyclopedia
Dead Serious is the debut studio album
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 of American hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 duo Das EFX
Das EFX
Das EFX is an American hip hop duo. It consists of emcees Skoob and Dray...

, released April 7, 1992 on East West Records
East West Records
East West Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group, and operates under WMG's Independent Label Group.-History:...

 and distributed through Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...

. Recording sessions for the album took place at Firehouse Studios in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 and at Charlie Marotta's North Shore Soundworks studio in Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, New York.

The album was a certified hit, peaking at 16 on the U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

 chart, topping the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...

 chart for five weeks and reaching platinum sales by 1993. Well-received upon its release, Dead Serious has since been regarded by music writers as a significant and influential album in hip hop.

Background

Group member William "Skoob" Hines was raised in the neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted extending two miles east-west.Originally, the area was known as Crow Hill....

. Andre "Krazy Drayz" Weston, born in Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

, came to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 as a child, growing up in Union City
Union City, New Jersey
Union City is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. According to the 2010 United States Census the city had a total population of 66,455. All of the city is on land, an area of...

 and Teaneck, New Jersey
Teaneck, New Jersey
Teaneck is a township in Bergen County, New Jersey, and a suburb in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 39,776, making it the second-most populous among the 70 municipalities in Bergen County....

. Both rapped during their high school years, Hines with the group's future producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 Derek Lynch's brother Tony. However, Lynch was Hines' DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

 first and wouldn't begin producing until later. Hines and Weston began performing together after they met at Virginia State University
Virginia State University
Virginia State University is a historically black and land-grant university located north of the Appomattox River in Chesterfield, in the Richmond area. Founded on , Virginia State was the United States's first fully state-supported four-year institution of higher learning for black Americans...

 in 1988. Hines and Weston met their freshman year on a road trip to another college through a mutual friend. According to Weston, the two became a duo after winning a campus contest which Hines suggested they enter together. Hines and Weston began to work with Brooklyn-based producers Chris Charity and Derek Lynch, both friends of Hines' from high school, who'd formed a production team using the name Solid Scheme Music at the time. According to Hines, aside from "Klap Ya Handz" and "They Want EFX," which was produced by Weston and he, all of the other instrumental tracks on the album were produced by Charity and Lynch. Around this time the group came up with its name which Weston noted was mostly Hines' idea. The name stemmed from an acronym
Acronym and initialism
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...

 of the two's nicknames, Skoob and Dray, and EFX from their constantly wanting their producers to add reverb to their vocals when in the studio. "So it was Sad EFX for a minute, but that didn't really make much sense, so we changed it to Das EFX."

Hines recalled much of the group's early material as being "primitive," stating that "the production on our early stuff didn't come up to par until "Klap Ya Handz." A producer named Dexx, also from Crown Heights, produced "Klap Ya Handz" for the group. In early 1991, Hines and Weston heard that EPMD
EPMD
EPMD is an American hip hop group from Brentwood, New York. The group's name is a concatenation of the members' name "E" and "PMD" or an acronym for "Erick and Parrish Making Dollars", referencing its members, emcees Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith...

 would be hosting a talent show at Club Tropicana in Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 and decided to enter. Hines and Weston performed their song "Klap Ya Handz," which they'd recorded as a demo with Dexx (In fact, for the album, Hines and Weston had to rhyme over the demo for "Klap Ya Handz" because they didn't have an instrumental version of the music.). The group apparently had the highest score in the contest, which would earn the winner a $100 prize. However, according to Weston, although the duo had the highest score Parrish Smith
PMD (rapper)
Parish J. Smith , better known as PMD , is an east coast rapper from Smithtown, Long Island and one-half of EPMD....

, one half of the group EPMD, told the club announcer to give the second best group the prize. While the winning group went up to claim their prize, Smith came to Hines and Weston and said, "yo, what would you guys rather have: a record deal or a hundred dollars? Meet me in the back of the club in five minutes." Smith and Erick Sermon
Erick Sermon
Erick Sermon , in Bay Shore, New York is an American rapper, musician, and producer.Sermon is best known as half of late-1980s/1990s hip hop group EPMD and for production work. He currently resides in Islandia, New York.- Career :...

, the other member of EPMD, met with Hines and Weston in the back of the club and asked the two to play them the "Klap Ya Handz" track again. Sermon and Smith were so impressed by the song that they asked Hines and Weston for the tape, with Smith telling them, "if you can get us nine more songs like the one you just performed, we can get you a deal." Hines and Weston kept in touch with EPMD during their junior year in college, finishing out the school year in May.

In 1991, the group was signed to EPMD's GMC Productions production and management company and became a part of their Hit Squad
Hit Squad
The Hit Squad was a 1990s hip hop collective of East coast hip hop artists formed by Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith better known as EPMD. The collective separated when EPMD broke up for the first time in 1993, later reforming as Def Squad.-Career:...

 collective of proteges. The material for their first album was recorded at Firehouse Studios in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 and EPMD's production home base, Charlie Marotta's North Shore Soundworks studio in Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

. The duo would send EPMD, who were touring the country at the time, the material they were recording for guidance. The group, who were also courted by Jive Records
Jive Records
Jive Records was a record label based in New York City, operating under RCA Music Group. Jive was primarily known for a string of successes with hip hop artists in the 1980s, and in teen pop and boy bands in the late 1990s. The word "jive" was inspired by Township Jive, a form of South African...

 at the time, were finally signed in late 1991 to the Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...

 subsidiary East West Records
East West Records
East West Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group, and operates under WMG's Independent Label Group.-History:...

.

Music

Due to being removed from an active music scene, the two MC's were free to develop their most idiosyncratic tendencies musically. According to Weston, the group's lyrical style stemmed from the two not being able to listen to New York hip hop
East Coast hip hop
East Coast hip hop is a regional subgenre of hip hop music that originated in New York City, USA during the 1970s. Hip hop is recognized to have originated and evolved first in the East Coast...

 on the radio in Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. Weston stated that "except for Brand Nubian
Brand Nubian
Brand Nubian is an American hip hop group from New Rochelle, New York, consisting of three MC's: Grand Puba , Sadat X and Lord Jamar , and two DJs: DJ Alamo and DJ Sincere...

, we weren't influenced by what was going on in New York. Basically we wanted to be different and we wanted to be dope like Brand Nubian... So instead of saying, 'I got a lot of balls,' we'd say, 'I got more nuts than a Baby Ruth
Baby Ruth
Baby Ruth is an American candy bar made of peanuts, caramel and chocolate-flavored nougat covered in chocolate.In 1921, the Curtiss Candy Company refashioned its Kandy Kake into the Baby Ruth. The bar was a staple of the Chicago-based company for some seven decades. Curtiss was purchased by Nabisco...

.'" Hines also felt being away from the environment helped their personal artistic growth. "We just wasn't exposed to that many styles at the time, so it helped us form our own." Hines and Weston would make up gibberish words, adding -iggity after many of them, which would eventually become their signature. The group also had a tendency to weave many pop culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

 references into their rhymes.

Though many have assumed that EPMD produced the music on the album because of their executive production credit, Weston stated "in the studio back then it was just me, Skoob, Chris, and Derek, and that was it. EPMD didn't produce us, we were just with their production company. A lot of people forget that." Weston referred to Charity, who died in the year 2000, as "the brains of the operation, definitely... He was definitely the boss and the real executive producer of the first album. We'd have meetings at his crib in Brooklyn and he was running things."

Reception and influence

Dead Serious caused an immediate sensation upon its release in March 1992. The album went platinum on the strength of the singles "Mic Checka
Mic Checka
"Mic Checka" is a song by American hip hop group Das EFX recorded for their debut album Dead Serious . The song was released as the second single for the album in July of 1992.-Track listings:12", Vinyl#"Mic Checka" - 5:08...

" and the Top 40 pop hit "They Want EFX
They Want EFX
"They Want EFX" is a song by American hip hop group Das EFX recorded for their debut album Dead Serious . The song was released as the group's debut single for the album in March of 1992...

", by 1993. Giving it a 4 out of 5-mic rating, The Source
The Source (magazine)
The Source is a United States-based, monthly full-color magazine covering hip-hop music, politics, and culture, founded in 1988. It is the world's second longest running rap periodical, behind United Kingdom-based publication Hip Hop Connection. The Source was founded as a newsletter in 1988...

s Matty C compared the duo's lyrical style to that of Busta Rhymes
Busta Rhymes
Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr., better known by his stage name Busta Rhymes ,Smith is an American rapper, producer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the alias Busta Rhymes after NFL wide receiver George "Buster" Rhymes...

, Treach, and EPMD
EPMD
EPMD is an American hip hop group from Brentwood, New York. The group's name is a concatenation of the members' name "E" and "PMD" or an acronym for "Erick and Parrish Making Dollars", referencing its members, emcees Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith...

, writing "Not only have they innovated a new rhyme flow that expands on all these styles, but they have brought back fun filled hip-hop". Ronin Ro of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...

complimented their "hard lyrics that simultaneously perplex, captivate, annoy, and amuse... television-induced, schizophrenic, lyrical wit". In his consumer guide for The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

, critic Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...

 gave the album an honorable mention rating, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like".

In a retrospective review, RapReviews writer Steve Juon described the album as "ten tracks jam-packed with dopeness" and commended Das EFX for "merging pop culture and punchlines, beat poet skat and hip-hop style, and creating a free form lyrical jazz in the process". Ira Robbins of Trouser Press
Trouser Press
Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" ...

called it "a monstrously entertaining debut" and wrote that they "don't push the topical envelope any — geography, rhyming and sexing are pretty much the alpha-omega of their menu... Fortunately, the pair's rereading of old news yields fresh and funny angles". Allmusic's Stanton Swihart gave the album 5 out of 5 stars and noted the duo's "lightning-fast, tongue-twisted word association and stream-of-consciousness rants rich in pop cultural references and allusions". Stewart elaborated on its initial appeal and subsequent influence in hip hop, stating:
Speaking on the duo's impact, Hines stated that he felt "what we were doing brought a twist to the game without watering anything down. If you were only hearing our radio stuff, you had one impression of us, but if you got the album then you realized there was a lot more depth there".

Track listing

All music written by A. Weston, W. Hines, C. Charity, and D. Lynch, except where noted.

Personnel

Information taken from Allmusic and album booklet liner notes.
  • Art Director: Bob Defrin
  • Design: Larry Freemantle
  • Engineering: Charlie Marotta, Bobby Sarsur, Yorum Vazan
  • Executive Producers: EPMD
  • Guitar: Bobby Sitchran
  • Mixing: Charlie Marotta, Bobby Sarsur
  • Photography: Robert Manella
  • Production: Chris Charity, William Hines, Derek Lynch, Andre Weston
  • Scratching: DJ Rhythm

Album

Chart (1992) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

16
U.S. Billboard R&B Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...

1

Singles

Year Single Peak chart positions
U.S. Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

U.S. Dance Music/Club Play Singles U.S. Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales
Hot Dance Singles Sales
Hot Dance Singles Sales is a chart released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States, established in 1985. It measures the sale of commercially released singles that deal with dance music and remixes...

U.S. Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales
The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales chart is the sales component chart of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. It is not the R&B subset of The Hot 100 Singles Sales, but rather a separate panel of sales of commercial singles in the urban market...

U.S. Hot Rap Singles
Hot Rap Songs
Rap Songs is a chart released weekly by Billboard in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio stations and sales in hip hop-focused or exclusive markets. From 1989 through 2001, it was based on how much the single...

1992 "They Want EFX
They Want EFX
"They Want EFX" is a song by American hip hop group Das EFX recorded for their debut album Dead Serious . The song was released as the group's debut single for the album in March of 1992...

"
25 29 1 5 1
"Mic Checka
Mic Checka
"Mic Checka" is a song by American hip hop group Das EFX recorded for their debut album Dead Serious . The song was released as the second single for the album in July of 1992.-Track listings:12", Vinyl#"Mic Checka" - 5:08...

"
10 22 1
"Straight Out the Sewer
Straight Out the Sewer
"Straight Out the Sewer" is a song by American hip hop group Das EFX recorded for their debut album Dead Serious . The song was released as the third and final single for the album in November 1992.-Track listings:12", Vinyl...

"
35 66 3
"—" denotes a release that did not chart.

External links

  • Dead Serious at Discogs
    Discogs
    Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...

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