‘The Cactus Album’: A Classic Hip-Hop Album From 3rd Bass
Serch and Pete were products of NYC’s grassroots hip-hop circles, with the skills to prove it.
In the late 1980s, 3rd Bass were regarded as the Def Jam label’s next “great white hopes.” However, reductively assigning emcees the caliber of MC Serch and Prime Minister Pete Nice roles based purely on pigment (or lack thereof) was always a bit of a red herring. Though outwardly something of an odd couple – Serch of the hi-top Jewfade, nerd glasses, and hyper dance moves; Pete, the cool customer with his mack daddy suits and cane – both were products of NYC’s grassroots hip-hop circles, with the skills to prove it. Thus the duo was far more aesthetically aligned with Rakim-era vernacular and flows than, say, the Beasties Boys’ original school-inspired hijinks. For Serch and Pete, credibility within the community was paramount. It’s this real time process of proving theirs, while brandishing outsized chips on their shoulders, that provides some of the best moments of their classic debut, The Cactus Album.
For anyone who didn’t get the memo, “Sons of 3rd Bass” positions them in no uncertain terms as the anti-Beasties. “Counterfeit style, born sworn and sold out with high voice distorted / If a Beast’ll wish play fetus, I’d have him aborted,” Pete rhymes with nimble disdain. Tempering their venom, however, is an undeniably playful sound – based around samples from Blood Sweat & Tears’ pop hit “Spinning Wheel” and snippets from an Edgar Bergen ventriloquism instructional record (“Throw that weak joke out!”). “Wordz of Wizdom” takes another tack: It’s six minutes of pure rhyming bliss that slyly acknowledges white rapper baggage (Serch: “Not righteous, but might just, make you wanna listen / Yo I’m Elvis with the wordz of wizdom”) over a patchwork of “Amen Brother” drums, Gary Wright MOR, and the Scooby Doo theme. Here and throughout, unofficial third member, producer Sam Sever matches Serch and Pete’s lyrical cleverness with invaluable musical wit – tossing sneaky jazz-funk breaks, the Doors, and even Tom Waits on one ridiculous interlude in the anything-goes spirit of Public Enemy/De La Soul-styled sample collages.
So it makes complete sense that both P.E. beat battalion the Bomb Squad and De La svengali Prince Paul are at the production helm for the LP’s dynamic singles. The former infuses its signature frenetic energy into “Steppin’ to the A.M.” – a would-be club anthem that sounds every bit the part. The latter employs an instantly recognizable Aretha Franklin piano, and announcements from 3 Feet High and Rising pal Don Newkirk in service of “The Gas Face,” the crew’s breakout hit. Conceived as a comical response to all things wack (including, in the group’s unsolicited, and in hindsight excessively dogmatic opinion, MC Hammer), its humor is a trojan horse for some more sobering thoughts on race and perception via Serch: “Black cat is bad luck, bad guys wear black / Must have been a white guy who started all that / (Make the gas face) For those little white lies / My expression to the mountainous blue eyes.” Speaking even louder than Serch and Pete’s preoccupation with cultural course correction and authenticity is their decision to spotlight their young protégé on the single – Zev Love X of the group K.M.D., eventually known to the world as MF DOOM (and here already in fine unorthodox rhyme form). A beautiful act of allyship, it’s still one of the best of several examples of 3rd Bass being well ahead of its time.
