Unfinished Business

Sound DNA

• Hip-Hop
• Boom Bap

• gritty
• swaggering
• urban

About

The second album from EPMD, 1989’s <i>Unfinished Business</i>, picks up right where the duo’s landmark 1988 debut left off, featuring inventive samples and plenty of slow-flowing braggadocio from one of the funkiest duos in rap history. But this time around, Long Island’s Erick Sermon and Parrish “PMD” Smith were able to back up their boasts: “Dropped the album <i>Strictly Business</i> and you thought we would fold,” Smith raps. “Thirty days later, the LP went gold.” Newly minted rap stars at the age of 19, Sermon and Smith were once again coming for necks with a rugged-but-smooth confidence. The album’s lead single, “So Wat Cha Sayin’,” would become a staple on <i>Yo! MTV Raps</i> (and, along the way, introduce millions of listeners to the slang term “bozack”). The song’s ballistic turntable solos came courtesy of the virtuosic DJ Scratch, who’d been introduced to the group by Run-D.M.C.’s Jam Master Jay, and who’d remain an integral part of EPMD throughout its 1990s run, lending heroic fervor to songs like “The Big Payback.” The rest of <i>Unfinished Business</i> is as reliably funky as ever. The second installment of the duo’s ongoing “Jane” series finds Smith once again ending up in the bedroom with the saga’s antagonist. “Knick Knack Patty Wack” introduces the formidable Long Island protégé K-Solo, while “Please Listen to My Demo” details the group members’ struggles when they were unsigned dreamers only two years earlier. And the anti drunk-driving story “You Had Too Much to Drink” marks EPMD’s first and only foray into Run-D.M.C.-esque rap-rock. Like its predecessor, <i>Unfinished Business</i> was a commercial and critical hit—but, more importantly, the album reverberated through hip-hop throughout the 1990s and beyond. Tha Dogg Pound would cover “Knick Knack Patty Wack” in 1997, while Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek would release a stylish, inventive version of “So Wat Cha Sayin’” in 2001. Rapper Evidence of Dilated Peoples even redubbed himself “Mr. Slow Flow,” inspired by a line in the <i>Unfinished Business</i> track “Strictly Snappin’ Necks.” Not long after the album’s release, EPMD would make the leap to Def Jam—the latest step in what would become one of the most remarkable streaks from rap’s golden age.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits