Steve 'Flash' Juon“Gangsta rap, look out, I’m on your trail
It’s time to take some hardcore rappers to jail
Cause everybody and they momma got a gat
Yelling ‘fuck five-oh’ but 5ive-O is yelling ‘fuck you’ back”
Today’s obscure rap album is 5ive-O’s “If U R Not Part Uv Da Solution…” and it’s just about the most stereotypical mid-1990’s rap album in every way EXCEPT ONE. Thanks in part to the commercial success of Onyx, aspiring rap stars (or their pushy record label A&R’s) sought to put an edgy flair into every song title and album name. “Da” not “The,” “Uv” not “Of,” and so on. The album came out on Wrap/Ichiban Records, an imprint whose catalogue screams “throw everything at a wall to see what sticks.” They got lucky with MC Breed and rode that train as far as they could. Kool Moe Dee’s final album after he arguably already fell off was on Ichiban. M.C. Brains was a one hit wonder with “Oochie Coochie” and his one hit wasn’t even on Ichiban — but his final album was. You see “wut” I mean?
In one of the most ill-conceived marketing gimmicks I could possibly imagine, somebody told this crew of Long Island rappers to dress like cops and pose on the album cover like they were standing over Rodney King. Even their name is slang for law enforcement that was well used in and outside of rap long before they hit the scene. Let me be blunt here — if you ever stopped to ask why there are so many songs about police brutality, then you can’t possibly understand why “If U R Not Part Uv Da Solution…” is a book that WOULD be judged by its cover. In large cities in America that’s exactly the reputation cops have — judging people by their skin color, clothing and/or jewelry first and making racist assumptions as a result. If you’ve never been pulled over for DWB then a cop might be your friend, but in the world of rap music they definitely aren’t. N.W.A may have upset a lot of people with “Fuck Tha Police,” but that’s because they spoke a truth white people didn’t want to hear.
The irony is that Ichiban might have been 30 years ahead of their time. In the era of social media an outlandish gimmick of dressing like cops and calling yourself 5ive-O would start #trending immediately. They undoubtedly hoped that rappers who rapped about being “the new boys in blue” would stir the waters, but they didn’t even make a ripple in the pond. Their one and only attempt to get noticed was the single “P-Yi-Yow” and even as someone who digested every rap single and album from the age of 9 to now I have ZERO memory of this one. This review is the first time I watched it and it’s just as absurd as you can possibly imagine if not more so.
The saddest part is that it’s not a bad song nor are they even bad rappers. Bars like “Run up if you wanna get got/because I’m dropping more fools Dirty Harry, Hard to Kill and RoboCop” are dated now but respectable for the era they come from. Their gimmick straight killed any chance of success they had dead. They failed so hard they don’t even merit an entry on the disambiguation page for the uses of “five-o.” Ichiban Records courted controversy among rap fans and didn’t even get the response a wet fart in church would. There’s nothing here that rises higher than “P-Yi-Yow,” but the self-described “cops of rap” have a few decent songs like “Manhunt” and “Uhh” you can listen to more than once. “If U R Not Part Uv Da Solution…” isn’t the worst record of 1994 but it might be the most forgettable.