The Cactus Album was also important because it proved to the hip-hop heads that white kids could play along without appropriating or bastardizing the culture. Not every single idea plays out successfully - Serch's Tom Waits impression on "Flippin' Off the Wall." is on the wrong side of the taste line, and "Desert Boots" is a puzzling Western-themed insertion - but they are at least interesting stretches that add to the dense, layered texture of the album.
The duo may not have come from the streets, but their hearts were there, and it shows.
Cactus album full#
For one, it is full of great songs, alternately upbeat rollers ("Sons of 3rd Bass"), casual-but-sincere disses ("The Gas Face"), razor-sharp street didacticism ("Triple Stage Darkness," "Wordz of Wizdom"), and sweaty city anthems ("Brooklyn Queens," "Steppin' to the A.M.," odes to day and night, respectively), with A-plus production by heavyweights Prince Paul and Bomb Squad, as well as the surprising, overshadowing work of Sam Sever. Matching MC Serch's bombastic, goofy good nature and Prime Minister Pete Nice's gritty, English-trained wordsmithery (sounding like a young Don in training), 3rd Bass' debut album is revelatory in its way. Besides the upper-middle-class frat-punks-in-rap-clothing shtick of the Beastie Boys and emissary/producer Rick Rubin, who both gained a legitimate, earned respect in the rap community, there were very few white kids in rap's first decade who spoke the poetry of the street with compassion and veneration for the form.
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