Steve 'Flash' JuonIt’s not often I’m surprised when RapReviews.com hasn’t covered something, but seeing we hadn’t done Low Profile’s “We’re In This Together” shocked me. It may just be that my childhood memory of Low Profile is higher profile than the general public. I suppose it helps if I explain the history here. Rapper William Calhoun Jr. and producer/disc jockey Alphonso Henderson were two aspiring L.A. artists in the 1980’s (Calhoun was born in Houston but moved to South Central) who got their first break thanks to a compilation on Ice-T’s Rhyme Syndicate label. As Calhoun says on “Pay Ya Dues”: “Thanks to Ice-T I got my foot in the door/Now I’ma rock the motherfucker ’til it ain’t no more.”
Now if that voice sounds slightly familiar there’s a good reason — you know Calhoun better as W.C., long-time Cali veteran and one third of the rap supergroup Westside Connection. This is so early in Dub-C’s career that he hadn’t reached his full baritone, and if you were expecting his unapologetically surly (but charming) bars, you won’t be hearing that here either. On Low Profile’s one and only record as a group, Aladdin and W.C. sound more like a New York rap act, and it doesn’t really hurt their presentation in any way. In fact “Keep Em Flowin” is almost an alternate take on EPMD’s “Please Listen to My Demo” right down to the same Faze-O “Riding High” sample. Sidebar: I don’t think a bad sample of this song could exist. Black Moon, Kris Kross, EPMD, Low Profile, they all sound funky as hell.
The hints of their California nature do come through in the lyrics though. “Comin from the streets of L.A., this ain’t a joke/And in Compton, brothers getting smoked over dope/Gangsters standing on the corner waiting to blast/on any sucker emcee, with the wrong color rag.” W.C. tells this in a “we’re all in the same gang” manner, urging everybody to get united instead of staying divided, but also warns everybody he’s not soft and if you run up “you’ll walk away without teeth.” As much as I know this is the same Dub-C we’d know much better later on, I feel like the closest we get to it on this album is “Funky Song.” Over Aladdin’s extra thick production, W.C. throws out shouts to N.W.A and Eazy-E and “the homies everywhere that’s down with Low Pro.” Sadly it never charted higher than No. 87 so there weren’t enough homies to go around.
Bringing it full circle here (pun intended) “We’re In This Together” is often described as an influential rap album, which is the other reason I was surprised we hadn’t talked about it yet. The fact that rap legend W.C. is one half of this group would have been reason enough, but the fact this release is one of your favorite rapper’s albums is as an even better one. In just under 46 minutes spread across 11 tracks, Henderson and Calhoun hit all the right notes. W.C. hadn’t reached his peak as a lyricist but even in this prototype stage he’s plenty dope on songs like “How Ya Livin’,” and when Aladdin is sampling the likes of “Soul Power 74” and “Impeach the President” you CAN’T go wrong.
The one thing that might stick out like a sore thumb is how much more “edutainment” W.C. sounds as one half of this group. Once he moved on to the Maad Circle and put a young Coolio on (RIP) he had embraced a much more aggressive subject matter and delivery. You might almost accuse him of being too sincere with songs like “Comin’ Straight From the Heart.” Look I won’t lie and say it’s not almost painfully earnest, but if you haven’t been jaded by the record industry yet, you might sound this positive yet. The irony is that he talks about other rappers making phony music just for their label, so he’s clearly aware of the risks of the career he’s pursuing.
Can I point out one more time that Aladdin really had the right ear for what works here? Sure I’m immediately reminded of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Here We Go Again” the moment “No Mercy” comes on, but a good Bob James loop is good no matter who is DJ and who is the emcee.
I like “We’re In This Together” more than a little bit. Frankly, I like it a lot. Maybe that scared me off from reviewing it because of the potential I’d overrate it. Well I can look at it with more maturity now that I’m older and see that W.C. was almost but not quite there yet as an emcee. That’s the only thing that holds this album back. It deserves the “influential” tag though because it not only gave William Calhoun the foundation to build a legendary career, it gave other rappers from any coast a blueprint for how to make an album that doesn’t suck. This is an overlooked gem.