Happy 35th Anniversary to 2nd II None’s eponymous debut album 2nd II None, originally released October 8, 1991.
DJ Quik’s affiliated crew had a “moment” throughout 1991. The year began with the release of Quik’s debut Quik Is The Name and by the time the year ended, members of the collective had dropped three more albums. The duo 2nd II None’s self-titled debut, released 35 years ago, is a personal favorite.
2nd II None is comprised of cousins Kai “KK” McDonald and Deon “Tha Dee” Barnett. The pair grew up with Quik in Compton and featured prominently on the Red Tape mixtape that the rapper/producer and the crew put out in 1990. They joined Quik on Profile Records soon after and he produced the entirety of their debut.
2nd II None is a fun, nearly 50-minute romp. Tha Dee and KK are both solid-enough emcees and easily exude charm and confidence. Tha Dee’s high-pitched tones contrast well with KK’s gravelly delivery. The two focus more on the “lighter” side of life in Compton. Which is to say they rap a lot about trying to get laid.
DJ Quik’s beat-making here at least matches the quality of what he demonstrated on Quik Is The Name, released as the year began. He continued to mix sampled material with live instrumentation, often complementing funk and soul loops with guitars and basslines. He also continued to find musical inspiration across multiple genres.
2nd II None also features material that originally appeared on the aforementioned Red Tape. The tracks are both re-recorded and re-edited to some degree, to give them a bit more of a polished feel, which generally serves them well. The “Intro” was the introduction for the Red Tape. In this case, the extended original was edited down to verses from just KK and Tha Dee, keeping things short and sweet.
“Underground Terror,” another reworked inclusion from the mixtape, is the most “gangsta” oriented track on the album. Both emcees are at their most vicious here, displaying ruthless swagger as they rap to a sped-up sample of the opening of Marvin Gaye’s “Life Is For Learning.” “We coming with the feeling of a true with a street point-of-view,” Tha Dee raps. “Doing things that the others can’t do.” The song is an example of one of my favorite forgotten subgenres: gangsta rap that samples 1960s/1970s spoken word tracks, as Quik incorporates vocals lifted from the Watts Prophets.
“Be True To Yourself,” the album’s first single, has a less gangsta bent. It features the duo advising others to essentially stay aware and humble while recognizing that material success is fleeting, as they rap to a sample of Curtis Mayfield’s “Kung Fu.” “What Goes Up” is another of the album’s message-oriented songs, depicting the rise and fall of aspiring gangstas and fly girls who succumb to temptation and pay for it dearly. “Punk Mutha Fuckaz” is an even more serious entry, as they lament the loss of their dead homies, while dissing those who they believe set them up to be killed.
Listen to the Album:
Overall, 2nd II None are at their best when they keep things more nimble. In terms of subject matter, most of the album’s material falls into one of two categories: 1) songs about pursuing the opposite sex that are heavy on innuendo but light on cursing and 2) songs about fucking that are raunchy as hell. Fortunately, 2nd II None are especially good at the former. “Ain’t Nothing Wrong” is a smooth and soulful track, built around a sample of the KC and the Sunshine Band song of the same name, with Quik joining the duo on the mic to pursue some action.
The album’s second and third singles also fall into the first category. “If You Want It” has the pair kicking game to a sample of Isaac Hayes’ “Hung Up On My Baby.” “Let the Rhythm Take You” is one of the album’s smoothest entries, with Quik crafting a sparkling piece of early 1990s R&B-influenced soul, replete with live guitar keys, and flutes. AMG leads off the track with a decidedly mellow flow, rocking “the sweet soul things” while rapping, “Done a little damage in my liz-ifetime / Pin a tail on the funkiest tribe, I roll to ride.”
The tracks that fall into the aforementioned second category feature some of Quik’s best sample-based creations. 2nd II None celebrate their coolness and sexual appetites on songs like “More Than A Player” and “The Life Of A Player.” The KK solo track “Just Ain’t Me” has a funky grittiness that’s hard to capture, as the rapper makes his expectations for a first date extremely clear (“Movies, McDonalds, and the motel parking lot”). KK forcefully telling women with children to hit the bricks isn’t particularly enlightened three-and-a-half decades later, but as I’ve written more than a few times before, it’s not what you do but how you do it that makes things entertaining.
The album features two proper posse cuts, each one featuring appearances by Quik, AMG, and Hi-C. The first, and better, of the two is “Comin’ Like This,” where Quik taps into another of my favorite forgotten sub-genres: reggae influenced gangsta rap. Here, he crafts a dancehall inspired beat as the five emcees deliver sex-related raps.
The album ends with “N****z Trippin,” which is an even looser sequel to “Skanless,” the posse cut that closed out Quik Is The Name. It plays like a wild, alcohol and weed drenched, six-minute “freestyle” session. It a mash of verses and sex-related drunken call and response chants, executed to a replay of Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” (“We're back with this shit that been used about 600 times!” Quik quips at the beginning of the song). Things are pretty messy, but you can hear that the crew is having a blast amidst the anarchy. The original version of the song, which closed The Red Tape, runs nearly 11 minutes.
2nd II None features great production and brash attitude, which make the album an entertaining exercise overall. It furthered Quik and his crew’s message that not all music originating from Compton had to reflect the grim realities of street life, and that there was room to have a good time on record.
Listen:
