Steve 'Flash' JuonI’m going to let you in on a little secret right at the start — Jesse West is best known for everything other than “No Prisoners.” In fact that’s not even his best known nom de plume in music. The man born Jesse Williams III is better known as 3rd Eye, allegedly the first person to ever use the word “bling” in a rap song. Personally I’m skeptical about this fact but he could at least argue to have the first example that went mainstream, given that he both produced and rapped on the “Dolly My Baby (Remix)” for Super Cat. Even here though he’s overshadowed by the debut of Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace, who would soon rise to prominence as The Notorious B.I.G.
That connection tells you the other thing West is best known for though — he’s one of the original members of the The Hitmen production squad for Bad Boy Records. During the 1990’s it wasn’t a surprise to see a 3rd Eye cameo on a song, remix or not, because thanks to the (now disgraced) Puff Daddy he was well connected in the industry. I’m also going to damn him with some faint praise here because I never thought of 3rd Eye as a big deal. He was just “a guy.” I never minded hearing him on somebody else’s track, but he was never the star attraction, just somebody who seemed to be in the mix who popped up on other people’s shit.
Learning that he had a rap career as Jesse West before becoming one of The Hitmen came as a mild surprise. I say “mild” because I didn’t realistically think he just came out of nowhere to become one of The Hitmen, but I am surprised as an avid reader of every rap magazine and watcher of every taped episode of Yo! MTV Raps I could find in my teens, I don’t think “No Prisoners” came up once. Despite being released on Motown Records, I can’t even vouch for the fact I ever saw his album for sale at Musicland or even via mail order from an Upstairs Records catalog. It’s the classic case of “if a tree falls in the forest and nobody was there” because nobody heard it.
And yet the evidence is right here in the form of a music video for the title track off “No Prisoners,” and I’m not trying to be funny when I tell you this, but even here I can say nobody gives a shit. It proves Motown must have spent some money on Jesse West, but not enough for this to be remembered. Your average random YouTube short does more views than this single has in over a decade since it was first uploaded and went public. I promise you I’m not clowning on him here. I saved a screenshot as proof.
This review may change his numbers, but the moment has been frozen in time for posterity. In fact that’s what “No Prisoners” is — a time capsule from 1989 that just got thawed out. West is spitting aggressive lyrics that are aggressively simple. “And if you suckers don’t like it, them to hell with you/And if your mother don’t like it, to hell with her too/I’m serious, and I’m getting hype again/I hear a beat I want to get on the mic again.” You might find a more generic example of ’89 if you try really hard, but even when Jesse West was trying really hard he sounded like a banal Afrocentric rapper. He keeps talking about doing the knowledge and building a nation on tracks like “State of Your Mind” but a boring backdrop of thin bass beats and drums can’t have been his work.. right? Well according to Discogs he split the duties on this album with Gordon Williams, so it might be.
You’d be forgiven for not thinking this is 3rd Eye, because 3rd Eye was at least memorable. He had a raspy voice and a little reggae patois to his bars. As Jesse West he had nothing. I had to fact check this review multiple times to confirm they were the same guy, and every time the answer came back yes, and even now I’m still questioning it. “Do You Wanna Party” might be one of the most embarrassing, cornball attempts to get people on the dance floor committed to record. No matter how much you might have disliked MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice or Young MC back then, they were all better than this.
Thankfully this wasn’t released as a single off the album, but “I Saw You” was, and it’s not much better. I can’t find a video for it and like the 300 views of the title track I suspect that if it exists no one cares. Someone should have told West not to sing. Judging by most of this album though he should have been told not to rap either. He got signed to Motown Records with music like this? It’s like a poor man’s version of Slick Rick without the accent, the personality, the swagger or the interesting delivery.
If an album exists to prove that old rap records aren’t guaranteed to be better, “No Prisoners” succeeds wildly at its goal. This is the kind of album where you should say thank you to every store that didn’t bother to sell it and every radio station that didn’t bother to play it. West commits the unpardonable sin of being boring after getting a major label deal. He must have given them a fire demo tape to get a deal in the first place, but once he got that deal he played it safer than a young Zaphod. He doesn’t swear, he doesn’t trash women, he doesn’t drink, and he’s a positive young man who wants to uplift the community. He’s got A+ morals and a F- debut. This was undoubtedly a tax write off. At least in his second career as a Puffy affiliate he succeeded far more than he ever did here.