Prince Paul and Resident Alien make you wonder what was wrong with Def Jam back in the day.

Was that a long enough title?

How many of you are familiar with Resident Alien? They were to be the inaugural signing and release on Prince Paul's label, Dew Doo Man Records, which was to be distributed by Def Jam/RAL (Rush Associated Labels) in the early nineties. Their sole album, which was never officially released, sounded like the mid-way point between De La Soul's 3 Feet High and Rising and the De La Soul Is Dead album. It was a mix of Paul's brand of sample-heavy hip-hop with a lot of reggae and world influences. It's probably not very politically correct by today's standards, though it's also clear it's not meant to be taken very seriously. It really is a missing link of the Native Tongues era of early nineties hip-hop that should have been released. There was even a single released, with two videos! (Please forgive me for the quality of those two videos, they are glitched pretty bad.) And yet Russell Simmons, in his weird, rapey way where he would take the credit from the A&R staff for signing cool artists (along with being accused of multiple rapes), and Lyor Cohen, who would try to make himself seem to have a hint of culture, decided to focus on doing things like releasing a Black Flames 12" with Public Enemy on the b-side (WTF?!?) or signing R&B artists that didn't sell (sorry Don) instead of focusing on the hip-hop that did and, in the process, cancelled the deal they had with Prince Paul, effectively ending Dew Doo Man and Resident Alien's prospects. Seriously, the story of Def Jam's artistic success has so much less to do with Russell and Lyor having an ear for anything, and more about Rick Rubin and their inspired staff looking for awesome artists. Think about what would have happened if the Geto Boys would've dropped their first album on Def Jam! Hell, think about if the Resident Alien album would've been released! Well...

The Resident Alien album, It Takes a Nation of Suckers to Let Us In, didn't come out, but a version of it leaked online quite a while ago. It's also clear after listening to it that some of the reasons the album didn't get released may have had to do with Russell and Lyor having no sense of humor, as there are plenty of goofy samples from Def Jam releases that might have pissed them off. There are also a lot of obvious samples. Like, A LOT of obvious samples! So maybe there were ego and finance-based reasons they didn't want to release the album, but seeing how much money Def Jam spent elsewhere, it simply doesn't make good sense burying something like this. Well, again with the well...

I recently acquired an advance promo tape of the Resident Alien album, and if this was the version sent around for review, it's apparent they tried to handle some of the sample issues, with a heavy emphasis on removing the goofier samples that Russell might not have found funny. The lack of those samples though doesn't change the quality of the music, which is very high, albeit very specific to the world of hip-hop circa 1991.

And so, I present to you for the purposes of entertainment, historical documentation, and historical documentation as entertainment, a different version of Resident Alien's unreleased album, It Takes a Nation of Suckers to Let Us In! As mentioned in the previous paragraph, some Def Jam related samples were removed, and at least one of the tracks (It's the Resident Alien) had it's backing track mostly redone. Aside from that, I transferred the tape to lossless, removed a ton of noise, tweaked the EQ a bit so the bass wasn't so in your face and the highs rose above your thighs, and finally scanned in the packaging. It sounds pretty good, though it also sounds like a thirty year old cassette, which is exactly what it is. It's pretty miraculous how good it sounds, but there's only so much you can do with a thirty year old tape, so please forgive me for it not sounding perfect.

             

Resident Alien - It Takes a Nation of Suckers to Let Us In (advance cassette)

01 Intro

02 It's the Resident Alien

03 I Yam What I Yam

04 The Oxtail, the Burger & One Chicken Wing (3 Different Styles)

05 Miss Lee (F.U.)

06 Shakey Grounds (feat. Maceo & Dres)

07 Ardicle Don

08 Horrorscope

09 Midtro

10 Ooh the Dew Doo Man

11 Mr. Boops

12 Alone

13 State of Emergency

14 Are You Ready

15 We Na Play

16 Wanna Bee (Russell)

17 Mothers Day

18 My Third World

19 Extro

20 Welcome to America




OH NO! DOOGIE HOWSER!



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