By 1988, the burgeoning rap and hip-hop music scene was growing. Still, though, there were no rappers who carried the mantel for a younger generation to truly relate.
Run-DMC, L.L. Cool J., Salt-N-Pepa, J.J. Fad, Kool Moe Dee and newcomers NWA and Public Enemy were big and bold with the raps, but none of them had a remote thought about entertaining kids. Young adults were about as far as these rappers were going to cater to with their messages.
Enter two young guys from Philadelphia to be, as they say, at "the right place at the right time."
One night in 1985, a young D.J. named Jeff Townes, best known as D.J. Jazzy Jeff, was performing and getting everyone on the dance floor with his instrumental grooves that made him one of Philadelphia's best performing D.J.s. His technique of "scratching" called "transforming," scratching a record in such a way that it weaves with repeated movements of the crossfader, made him an innovator.
But something was missing that night in the house party he was performing at in south Philly -- his "hype" guy, who was late to the gig. It just so happened that the house party was only a few houses down from where a 16-year-old boy named Will Smith was living. Smith, not afraid of going to a house party in the neighborhood, jumped on stage to help Townes and the two flowed together like they had done it a long, long time as Smith made raps up to the instrumental jams Townes was creating and spinning. Townes has said that the most upsetting thing about the night the two met was that his "hype guy" finally arrived and he had to break the news he wasn't going to be his "hype guy" any longer.
The two new friends worked Philadelphia clubs and house parties throughout most of 1985 and grew a reputation. Before long, they got noticed by a Philadelphia-based record label called Word Up Records. The small label's A&R man, Paul Oakenfeld, brought them in and the duo brought him their rap jam to a song they did a raw recording of called "Girls Ain't Nothin' But Trouble," a tale of a guy trying to get the vibe of a girl one night and finding himself in a scenario he has a hard time getting out of, mainly due to the fact the girl was married, all done to a musical backdrop of -- all things -- the theme song to the 1960s TV series I Dream of Jeannie.
That song became a regional hit in their area in 1986 just before Smith graduated from high school. But getting any attention beyond the Philly and hip-hop areas was a challenge.
Still, their reputation was growing as a rap act that needed to be heard, especially when Smith, who now took on the moniker of "The Fresh Prince," was rapping on songs that had no profanity on it. One man got the gist of it all -- he was burgeoning hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons, the brother of Run-DMC's Joseph Simmons, the Run of the group. He got D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince signed to Jive Records in 1986 and the pair recorded their first album "Rock The House," and it sold a modest 300,000 copies in the spring and summer of 1987, and it was big enough for the pair to join fellow rappers Run-DMC and Public Enemy on a tour.
Their name was now out there, but because rap was still a music that many in the mainstream avoided like a bad flu, it was going to be a tough sell for them to be liked by more people. By 1987, however, the walls of the rap world were beginning to come down in front of mainstream America. In 1987, L.L. Cool J. released "I Need Love," a rap "ballad," that made the Top 15. In late 1987, Salt-N-Pepa scored their first Top 40 hit with the infectious "Push It." Soon after that L.L. Cool J. was back with a movie hit, "Going Back To Cali" from Less Than Zero. And shortly after that, a trio of ladies known as J.J. Fad rocked the Top 40 in the late spring 1988 with "Supersonic."
Now rap music needed an anthem that was clean and didn't have a "double entendre" message to it. Run-DMC helped to start breaking down the walls in 1986 with "Walk This Way," a rap revival of the old Aerosmith song that also featured lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry. Rap music was missing that "clean" record everyone could get.
Enter D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. In late 1987, the pair went back into the studio to record their next album. They spent four months crafting the album and putting together more scenarios and rap jams to the music Townes was spinning. By the winter of 1988, the pair was done with the album that was called "He's The D.J., I'm The Rapper," which showed a changing of the guard with Smith, now 19, becoming the front guy and Townes as the behind-the-scenes D.J./mix-master.
The record label decided to give another single a try. The first single was "Brand New Funk." Though it sampled four different songs, most notably James Brown's "Funky President (People It's Bad)" and L.L. Cool J.'s "I Can't Live Without My Radio," the release did not resonate with those in mainstream America. The song never hit the pop chart and only got as high as No. 76 on the Billboard Hot R&B chart.
With the thought of a spring smash all but gone, Jive Records went to Plan B. And the next song on its agenda was a ditty called "Parents Just Don't Understand." Those who heard the song felt this was the "next best thing."
In this rap, Smith is lamenting that he can't have freedom at all from his parents, who want him to grow up just a normal, regular guy -- from another era, that is. In the first verse, Smith goes school shopping with his mother and it's none of the clothes that his friends wear and that the moment he puts on these threads "from 1963" he would ridiculed by his classmates and that he had to explain to his mom that this ridicule would last "200 more times" for the entire year.
In the next verse, the Prince's parents are taking a vacation, but they leave the Porsche behind. He has no license, but that doesn't stop him from grabbing the keys and driving around the city with the car. In his venture, he picks up a girl who is turned on by not only the car, but by, well, him. He goes faster, she pushes her hand further up his pant leg and at that moment, a cop pulls him over. He finds out that the girl was a 12-year-old runaway and that he gets put in jail. Mom and dad have to cut their vacation short and the torment and torture begins on the ride home, where "one would beat me, while the other was driving."
"Parents Just Don't Understand" was going to be the song. Jive Records was confident that the earlier disappointment of "Brand New Funk" would go away. The record company had the boys make a music video to their new song and that, too, was a smash with Smith acting the role of the naïve teenager who has to deal with the headache of "out of touch" parents. The budget was small to do the video inside a studio without going anywhere, but it turned out to be the tipping point in what was about to turn this duo's career in a forward manner.
Released in early May 1988, "Parents Just Don't Understand" debuted on the Hot 100 on May 21, 1988, at No. 75, the breakthrough the boys were waiting for. It jumped from there the next week to No. 59. It slowed down, but kept going the next two weeks to No. 52 and then No. 46.
Then on June 18, 1988, "Parents Just Don't Understand" became the latest rap single to reach the pop Top 40 as it bolted into the countdown at No. 36. It moved up modestly to No. 32 the next week, then into the Top 30 at No. 26 on July 2, 1988. It got to No. 21 the week after that. Then it cracked the Top 20 on July 16, 1988 at No. 17. A week later, it was up five places to No. 12 and destined to become rap music's second Top 10 hit after "Walk This Way." All fingers pointed toward that.
But it held the next week at No. 12, lost its chart bullet, and by August 6, 1988, Casey Kasem's last regular Top 40 countdown show before leaving the show after 18 years, it dropped to No. 13. Three weeks later, it was off the Top 40, but then came the follow-up Top 40 hit, "A Nightmare On My Street," a tale of what happens when best friends go to see the latest Nightmare On Elm Street film and how it affects the Prince, who doesn't believe in the dude, but then sees him in both his dreams and in reality. That song would peak at No. 15, but may have gotten to the Top 10 had the makers of the movie not sued Jive Records for copyright infringement, forcing the record label to scrap the music video they did for the song and eventually settling out of court with New Line Cinema. That affected the song's chart run.
In late 1988, the record label gave "Girls Ain't Nothin' But Trouble" another try now with the success of two Top 15 hits, but it only got as high as No. 57 in the re-release.
And in February 1989, D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince made history at the Grammys as they were awarded the very first rap Grammy honor for "Parents Just Don't Understand," winning in the Best Rap Performance category.
The duo was now an international smash as well as a domestic one. In 1989, they recorded their next album/CD "And In This Corner ... " that gave them another Hot 100 single, the novelty hit about the baddest man in boxing at the time, "I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson."
By 1990, NBC had seen the appeal of Will Smith and gave him a TV show about his character called "The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air," which would run for six seasons until 1996.
In 1991, the rap act finally got their first Top 10 smash with the nostalgic "Summertime" about growing up to summertime parties in their native Philadelphia. It would peak at No. 4 on the pop chart and, more importantly, gave them their very first No. 1 R&B hit that summer. They followed it up with a rap version of the 1979 Anita Ward No. 1 hit, "Ring My Bell," which peaked at No. 20. In 1993, the pair had their last Top 40 hit with the international smash, "Boom! Shake The Room," which got to No. 13 in the U.S., but gave the boys their first No. 1 hit in the UK.
There'd be one more chart single, and then that'd be it for D.J. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. Smith was becoming an international acting superstar and he began to focus on that aspect of his career. The act finally broke up in 1996, but the two remained friends well enough to every so often reunite to recreate the music that helped break both of them. And Smith hinted in late 2015 that there may be a tour by the pair come the summer of 2016.
Chances are that if there is one, they will recreate the moment when both became superstars thanks to a story about teenage angst and rebellion.
The kind of story that kept the interest of teens everywhere and still does to this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment