Happy 35th Anniversary to 3rd Bass’ debut album The Cactus Album, originally released November 14, 1989.
As a white teenager obsessed with hip-hop in the late ’80s, 3rd Bass really meant something to me. Up until that point, “white rapper” essentially meant the Beastie Boys, unless you were a big fan of The White Boys. The group was made up of Peter “Pete Nice” Nash, Michael “MC Serch” Berrin, and Richard “DJ Richie Rich” Lawson. The group’s emcees, who were, of course, white, were able to express themselves without coming across as exaggerated caricatures. That struck a personal chord, knowing that I was someone who didn’t view hip-hop music as a passing trend.
Liking the Beastie Boys became somewhat problematic during the late ’80s for these “true” hip-hop heads. While I greatly enjoyed Licensed To Ill (1986), it’s not like I identified with the drunken frat boy image that the trio adopted at the behest of Rick Rubin and had channeled through songs like “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!).” The Beastie Boys took hip-hop seriously, but at the time I didn’t believe that they made serious hip-hop music.
Meanwhile, both members of 3rd Bass came from a background where you respected the architects of hip-hop culture or that meant your ass. While the Beastie Boys were a product of Manhattan’s punk club scene, Serch and Pete Nice were battle tested in legendary clubs like the Latin Quarter, the Palladium, and Union Square. In an era when being an outsider meant at best you’d get your chain snatched and at worst catch a serious beatdown, the members of 3rd Bass commanded respect. The group very much sounded like the products of their environment (pun intended) when they released their debut LP The Cactus Album 35 years ago.
3rd Bass was neither Serch nor Pete’s introduction to releasing hip-hop music. Serch had dropped a pair of independent singles and was receiving some buzz for his efforts. Meanwhile, Pete had been a member of a three-man crew called the Servin Generals, whose ranks included Blake Lethem a.k.a. Lord Scotch, credited as the first white rapper and the younger brother of novelist Jonathan Lethem. However, just as the Generals were looking to put out some material, the group disbanded unexpectedly and unceremoniously. Both artists had come to Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen separately looking for deals. They came together as a group before they were eventually signed to Def Jam. Richie Rich, a disciple of the late DJ Clark Kent, didn’t enter the picture until The Cactus Album was near completion.
Each emcee in 3rd Bass was stylistically unique. Serch was a boisterous party rocking emcee in the mold of T La Rock, while Pete Nice was an often abstract Rakim-type. However, their different approaches gelled well on record. Musically, their sound fell somewhere between Public Enemy and early De La Soul/Jungle Brothers. The tracks on the album are distinguished by a sample heavy approach to production that draws from eclectic sample sources. Pete Nice handles much of the work behind the boards, along with help from Sam Sever, a skilled producer known at the time for his drum programming work with Mantronix and Run-DMC. The Bomb Squad and Prince Paul also produced two tracks apiece, which also lends to the Public Enemy/Native Tongues influence.
“Steppin’ To The A.M.,” the group’s Bomb Squad-produced first single, is a dense collection of samples and rhythmic percussion. It feels like the tracks that the group produced for Slick Rick during that era, like a busier version of “Lick the Balls.” Serch and Pete pass the mic back and forth with great ease throughout the song, each feeding off each other’s lines, and each backing the other up with timely ad-libs and rhymes.
Listen to the Album:
Serch has often told the story that portions of the song had their genesis as something that Lyor Cohen asked either Serch or both Serch and Pete (depending on when the story is told) to write for Rakim after he was allegedly experiencing writer’s block. Accounts of the story have been disputed, but suffice to say that it sounds amazing as a 3rd Bass track, especially considering the two hadn’t been a group for very long when they wrote it.
Pete and Serch built their chemistry soon after sitting down to write together for the first time. Under the group’s original moniker 3 the Hard Way, the pair quickly put together “Words Of Wisdom,” a lengthy bustling track featuring both emcees dropping multifaceted and rugged verses. While Pete warns wack emcees to “never stigmatize as a rapper or I'll slap ya / You’re stung from my tongue as you run from the drum,” Serch raps, “You’re toe ingrown, low showing; you ain’t got nobody, holmes.” The track that they rhyme over is also complex, as it incorporates elements from two different Gary Wright songs (“Love Is Alive” and “Dream Weaver”), while Sam Sever does an amazing job at chopping and manipulating the drum break from The Winstons’ “Amen, Brother.”
“The Gas Face,” the second single from the album, remains 3rd Bass’ biggest and most enduring hit. The term remains in the cultural lexicon, as facial expressions of wackness never really get old. Prince Paul provides a low-key but distinctive track, incorporating the meandering bassline and horn blast from the introduction of The Emotions’ “I Like It,” and mixing it with the piano from Aretha Franklin’s “Think.”
Though Pete’s verse that explores the danger of shady record deals is dope, Serch kicks a memorable verse about components of institutional racism. Even with the scarcity of credible white emcees in the hip-hop scene during the late ’80s, very few rapped about the effects of racism on the Black population. This was years before concepts like “white privilege” and “allies” were commonly discussed ideas, so Serch addressing how “black” is portrayed as wicked in popular culture and encouraging Black women to be proud of their natural hair was considered progressive for the time.
Zev Love X makes his debut on the song, delivering the final verse. Zev, along with his brother Subroc, were two of the members of the group KMD, whom 3rd Bass would take under its wing and executive produce their 1991 debut album Mr. Hood. Zev eventually became MF DOOM, and dominated hip-hop's underground scene from the late ’90s through the ’10s. And though his voice and delivery were quite different back in 1989, you can still hear the inklings of what DOOM would become.
The group targets the Beastie Boys on the scathing “Son of 3rd Bass,” for many reasons. Serch and Pete felt that while they had both put in work trying to build their credibility, the Beastie Boys had lived a comparatively charmed life in comparison. After trading punk rock for hip-hop, they released the highest selling rap album at the time and toured the world with Madonna. They also decided to leave the preeminent hip-hop label, Def Jam, to sign with Capitol Records, which seemed like the group was selling out. Furthermore, one of Serch’s interactions with Mike D had turned sour; after going to Diamond’s apartment seeking business advice, he unexpectedly started pelting Serch with random objects.
As a result, Pete and Serch decided to be the vanguard of Def Jam’s honor on the album’s opening track. Over a loop of Blood, Sweat, and Tears’ “Spinning Wheel,” both members lay into the trio. “Young useless, lyrically careless,” Pete raps, “Rhyme revolves around modes of mindless.” With his lengthy closing screed, Pete labels them “silver spoon having, buckshot acne showing, L.A. weak-ass sellout … Def Jam reject devils.” Sam Sever ends the song by furiously scratching vocals from a ventriloquist instructional record.
I’ve always had a fondness for a pair of the slept-on tracks on the album, the first being “Soul In The Hole,” where Serch and Pete drop basketball influenced rhymes over a sample of Stanley Turrentine’s “Sister Sanctified,” best known for its usage in Boogie Down Productions’ “My Philosophy.” Even better is the noisy and chaotic “Triple Stage Darkness,” inspired by the works of Public Enemy and Eric B. & Rakim’s “Follow the Leader.” To create the brooding track, Pete Nice and Sam Sever mesh BT Express’ “The House is Smoking” with the well-known “UFO” break by ESG.
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“Product of the Environment” is one of the album’s best and most serious entries. Pete and Serch explain their backgrounds growing up in the unpredictable and dangerous New York club scenes. They detail their escapades both running the streets and establishing themselves as emcees, rocking house parties and paying dues as opening acts for NYC club mainstays like Dana Dane. At the same time, they each uses their verses to explore the ramifications of urban blight on the inner-city population. The song was later remixed by Marley Marl and released as the album’s fourth single.
3rd Bass proved adept at making songs that could be played on the radio without compromising their content. I’ll never understand why the album’s third single “Brooklyn Queens” wasn’t a bigger hit, considering how well it straddled catchy accessibility with ample creativity. Producer Prince Paul puts together a fun track, pairing a sample of The Emotions’ “Best Of My Love” with frenetic drums and sounds from Grandmaster Flash’s “beat box” on the live version “Flash It To the Beat.” Serch and Pete each share hard luck tales of trying to court Brooklyn’s finest females, only to be dissed for a guy “wearing a four finger ring.”
“Monte Hall” is almost a complete change of pace for the album, with the group taking a more deliberate approach to their rhymes and beats. Striking a “soulfully smooth” note while creeping over a loop of Grover Washington Jr.’s “Black Frost,” both Serch and Pete describe approaching the objects of their respective desire in a crowded club just as the music begins to slow to sultry crawl. Serch has often expressed disappointment that the song was never released as a single, and I agree with him.
The album ends with “Who’s On Third,” a brief DJ track that spotlights the talents behind the wheels of steel by DJ Richie Rich. As mentioned earlier, Rich wasn’t brought into the group until The Cactus Album was well into its recording process, as the group went through a couple of DJs before welcoming him into the fold.
3rd Bass would go on to release a remix EP entitled Cactus Revisited (1990) and then follow it up with Derelicts Of Dialect (1991), which for my money is even better than The Cactus Album. They broke up due to personal differences soon after, essentially because they were on tour constantly and were caught up in the same closed quarters. But as Serch and Pete both said during a 2013 interview on Sway In the Morning, both were ready to move on from the group, and it manifested in the two having “psychological” and personal problems with each other. Each briefly pursued their respective solo careers, with neither achieving the success that they earned as a member of 3rd Bass.
In the subsequent years, all three members of the crew have gone down some interesting career paths. Pete Nice became a collector of baseball memorabilia, running a shop in Cooperstown, NY, and has become renowned for his vast knowledge of the sport. He also has been involved in curating the Hip-Hop Museum in the Bronx. Serch worked in the record industry, became mentors to artists like Nas, O.C., and Non Phixion. He was the host of VH-1’s White Rapper Show and briefly had his own Dr. Phil-style syndicated talk show. As of late, he’s been promoting various hip-hop related events in the Florida area. Meanwhile, Richie Rich has had the steadiest career of the three, running an HVAC company in Arizona.
Pete and Serch have a complicated relationship. They’ve reunited a few times for reunion concerts over the years (including Woodstock ’99), and even recorded a few songs, even releasing a single for a comeback album during the early ’00s. But there have definitely been bad times. They loudly argued with each other during an episode of the radio show of New York personality Lord Sear. The point of contention this time had to do with who wrote what for who on The Cactus Album. It was ugly and a little sad.
That said, in advance of the 35th anniversary of The Cactus Album, the group appears to have patched things up again. Through his IG account, Serch announced that “Hell has frozen over” and that the group’s original three members are reuniting and planning a 2025 tour. Soon after, at the WBLS 50th anniversary concert in Newark, Pete and Serch joined each other on stage, performing their verses from “The Gas Face.”
If nothing else, 3rd Bass showed the power of music can overcome personal feelings. Pete and Serch made The Cactus Album work, and created something that has endured for three decades. As rappers who are white, they made music that respected the culture and was true to who they were as people, a feat that wasn’t really duplicated until the rise of Eminem in the late ’90s. Even if the members of the group couldn’t stand each other at any point during their existence, it’s exceptional that they found a way to make their partnership work and put together a timeless album.
LISTEN:
Editor's note: this anniversary tribute was originally published in 2019 and has since been edited for accuracy and timeliness.