Unfinished Business

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 rap. “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. .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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