![]() I was beyond pissed at Greg Mack about that, I told him to go f- himself. On the second day, we had an interview at KDAY, and they had Hammer call in. So if anyone tried to do anything, Pookie would be like, “It’s off.” Pookie was a lieutenant who was well-known throughout California. ![]() Luckily Russell had persuaded Mike Concepcion, who was a leader of the Crips, to bring in this guy Pookie to roll with us. They locked down the whole floor of the hotel we were staying at. SERCH: When we got to L.A., we heard that Hammer’s brother and the Crips had put out a hit on us. PETE: I’m actually the one who said the line about Hammer in the song, but Serch took the brunt of it. SERCH: There was a lot of drama with MC Hammer that resulted from that song. The gas face was when girls would suck their teeth and just walk away. SERCH: When a girl would diss us, Doom started saying, “She just gave me the gas face.” Which meant that we just spent our gas money to get to the mall, only to get dissed. “The Gas Face” (featuring Zev Love X of KMD) Bill Stephney, Russell and Lyor would tell us all kinds of stuff, and we thought they were just blowing smoke up our asses. That was an actual meeting we had with him. I did that with all of our meetings, just to hear all the bullshit they would say. PETE: I used to secretly record the guys at Def Jam. I didn’t know any of them before I met Mike that day. So that’s where all the Beasties’ disses on “Sons of 3rd Bass” came from. Two months later there was a piece in Spin and the writer asked them what they thought of 3rd Bass, and Mike D said how he threw shit at me and shooed me out. I was leaving his apartment and all of a sudden he started throwing shit at me, like foam balls and stuff lying around his apartment. They had gotten out of their Def Jam deal, and he gave me really good insight about Russell. One day I saw Mike D on the street and I ended up talking to him in his apartment, because I needed some advice. SERCH: The Beastie Boys were huge at the time. ![]() In this excerpt from the forthcoming book Check the Technique: Volume 2, Serch and Pete share the unexpectededly sensational stories behind a half-dozen classic Cactus tracks. The Cactus Album, produced by Sever, Prince Paul and the Bomb Squad, and featuring DJ Daddy Rich (born Richard Lawson), came out in October 1989 and went gold within six months. We’re still $150,000 away from being recouped.” “We used three or four samples per song, so those clearances ate up all our royalties. “Our advance was $5,000 each,” Serch says. That’s how it all began.”ĭespite signing to one of the hottest labels in hip-hop, the group’s deal wasn’t exactly a dream payday. Says Pete, “The old story that Russell and Lyor put me and Serch together is the furthest thing from what actually happened.” In fact, “I was at Chung King Studios and had laid down the original version of ‘Wordz of Wizdom.’ Sam liked the track and played it for Serch. That white kid from Queens was Pete Nice. I think you guys should work together.’ “ Serch recalls, “One day Sam called me and said, ‘Def Jam signed another white kid from Queens. It may not have completely integrated rap, but it was a precursor to a culture that became more inclusive and widespread after its arrival.Simmons’ right-hand man, Lyor Cohen, set up Serch with a producer named Sam Sever (real name Sam Citrin). 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. 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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