Happy 30th Anniversary to Kwest Tha Madd Lad’s debut album This Is My First Album, originally released April 9, 1996.
When it comes to attributes that contribute to the dopeness of an emcee, humor is an extremely underappreciated skill. Lots of rappers can deliver a clever punchline with an obscure pop culture reference, but it takes a different sort of skill to be legitimately funny. I’ve got a lot of love for calm and cool verbal artists like Rakim and Nas, but some of my favorite emcees infuse humor into their rhymes. What Eazy-E lacked in verbal gymnastics he made up for with his comedic timing and delivery, which is what makes Eazy-Duz-It (1988) an enduring classic. Furthermore, artists like Redman, Sean Price, Slick Rick, Big L, Biz Markie, J-Zone, and Too $hort all knew the ability to make their audience laugh was central to their appeal.
Thomas “Kwest Tha Madd Lad” St. John is a uniquely funny guy. Especially on his debut project, This Is My First Album, released 30 years ago. On the mic, he is alternately boisterous and clever, featuring the panache of the aforementioned Slick Rick and the “I Don’t Give a Fuck” attitude of Eazy-E. The fact that he’s also a fundamentally exceptional emcee, with impeccable delivery and breath control, makes him extraordinary at his craft.
Kwest came up in the ultra-competitive late 1980s/early 1990s New York City battle scene. He was known for his outlandish antics that he flexed during battles and sheer ruthlessness when it came to taking down opponents. He competed in the 1990 New Music Seminar MC Battle For World Supremacy, then one of the country’s premier emcee competitions. He competed along with future stars including Naughty By Nature’s Treach, eventually falling to Kid Jazz of the Rhyme Syndicate.
It was at this battle that Kwest was “discovered” by Dan Charnas. These days Charnas is a well-respected hip-hop author, professor, intellectual and podcaster, but over three decades ago he was an aspiring producer and journalist, working at Profile Records doing A&R and promotion. He connected with Kwest, and the two became good friends. A few years later, after he became an A&R at Rick Rubin’s American Records, Charnas signed Kwest to the label, making him one of the imprint’s first hip-hop artists, along with Art of Origin.
This Is My First Album was recorded over a few years, both in New York and Los Angeles. Kwest released a pair of well-received singles, “Lubrication” and “101 Things To Do While I’m With Your Girl,” which seemed to set the stage for a successful launch. Both songs centered on his success with the opposite sex, and both songs were damn funny.
This Is My First Album is ambitious and sprawling. In some ways, it follows the mold of other early to mid-1990s albums on major labels. A good chunk of it centers on Kwest’s prominent strengths (laying down game to women and delivering verbal beatdowns), while the rest features him showcasing the diversity of his skills, such as his ability to craft narratives and touch on a variety of topics.
The album features tracks from a mix of beatmakers, though much of it is produced by either Kwest himself or Charnas. The Baka Boyz team, Erik Romero, LA Jay, and Tony D also lend their talents to the album, helping sport a very early to mid-1990s aesthetic (that’s very much a compliment). It’s the type of album that would fit in well in the hip-hop landscape of 1994.
Bu This Is My First Album didn’t come out in 1994; after Kwest turned in the completed project, American shelved the album for two years, feeling it lacked something. Kwest continued to record new material during this lay-off and had hoped to incorporate these songs onto the album. However, in spring 1996, American decided to release the project in its previously recorded form. By then, it had been a long time since Kwest had released a single. Even though he ended up gracing the cover of Rap Pages, which at the time was the nation’s second most popular hip-hop magazine, the label couldn’t muster much buzz for the album.
Listen to the Album:
This Is My First Album may not have garnered the promotional support it deserved when it dropped, but its quality is still clear. Even as a project released technically two years after its time, it still holds up well with the other hip-hop releases of 1996, which was, in case you don’t remember, a pretty damn strong year for hip-hop. Kwest’s talent and charisma pulse through each track, making the album a really fun listen.
Kwest has said that This Is My First Album is actually a concept album. It begins and ends with sounds of Kwest mid-passion with an unnamed woman. In between is supposed to represent his vision of what his debut album is supposed to sound like, which ends with his death (he dies multiple times, to be exact).
Kwest is best known for “101 Things To Do While I’m With Your Girl,” the Charnas-produced album-opening single that’s also one of the most charming songs about infidelity ever released. He nonchalantly illustrates his abilities to steal your girl from out from under you with minimal effort. The track’s plucky baseline, taken from the intro to Brick’s “Living From the Mind,” is infectious, while Kwest is out to “prove that no one can master the hottie snatcher, punani catcher.”
Kwest’s pursuit of affection dominates much of the album’s first half, leading to some of its most creative entries. “Disnexone” features him kicking game to seemingly dozens of women in a single night at a club, speed-dating years before it became popular. “Daddiez Home” is the funniest entry on the project, as he details different scenarios of getting caught mid-sexual encounter by the father of the girl in question. Kwest effectively breaks down the intrinsic danger of the situation, rapping, “I’ve been bagged by everyone from aunts to cousins at a honeys pad / But dads get mad and want to hurt a brother bad / I guess they always see their girls as angels or cream of the crop / Can’t picture them doggy style or on top.”
Kwest does get pretty explicit throughout This Is My First Album. He goes into graphic detail describing one of his sexual escapades on “Lubrication,” the album’s ultra-smooth first single. The song “Skin Care” would have been one of the filthiest songs Kwest’s catalogue, if it hadn’t been “censored.” And by “censored” I mean that Kwest bleeps out all the curses himself (by essentially yelling “Bzzzzzz!” at every instance) rather hilariously throughout the song. Kwest has said he recorded a dirty version of the song at the time, but all recordings of it were lost years ago.
Even among all the raunchy, sex-related material, Kwest is very good at being heartfelt. “I Met My Baby At V.I.M.” is pretty earnest, as Kwest kicks a (fictional) tale about meeting his baby’s mother at the popular NY-based discount clothing store. Charnas pairs a loop of The Deele’s “Shoot ’Em Up Movies” with a drum breakdown from Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love,” then splicing a part from the notorious commercial radio spot for store (“V! I! M!”) into the hook.
It's not a surprise that Kwest’s braggadocio/battle-oriented material is also incredibly strong. He puts his freestyle skills to use in a traditional manner on “Blasé Blah,” rapping a pair of verses off the head to a sample of Idris Muhammed’s “Crab Apple.” As good as the song is, the Baka Boyz-produced remix (which appeared as the B-side for the “Lubrication” 12”) is even better. “Disk and Dat” is an upbeat LA Jay-produced track, with Kwest talking shit while outlining his recording process in broad strokes.
On “What’s the Reaction?,” the album’s third single, Kwest does a great job setting the scene at an NYC club on Friday night. He’s particularly adept at describing his process of entering a rhyme cypher and lyrically smoking an adversary who’s foolish enough to test his skills. “N****s run up, hoping they can come up and smoke,” he raps. “Man, I leave ’em done up and broken from Hoboken to Oakland.”
Kwest gets more serious during the album’s last quarter, getting even more creative with his storytelling abilities, facing death at each stop. He relays a tale of turnstile-jumping gone horribly wrong on “125 Pennies For Your Thoughts,” while he conveys the anger and confusion that goes along with losing a friend to dangerous drug addiction on “Herman’s Head.” Kwest assumes the role of a murderous stick-up kid on “Bludawnmeyesneekhuz (Through Tha Eyez Of A Hood),” as he narrates the violence filled days and nights of someone who gets off on blowing people’s heads off.
I wouldn’t say “Damn” is a “serious” song, but it certainly is dark. It also makes sense from a storytelling perspective: after dying in two of the three previous songs, Kwest finds himself in Hell, rapping from the perspective of a demon (“I been away from hell too long, I think it's time I went home…”) The Baka Boyz hook up an appropriately sinister beat and Kwest distorts his voice through studio magic to make himself sound like one of the Devil’s servants. He lists centuries worth of misdeeds and attempts at social engineering, before resolving to strike out on his own, “walk the line between good and bad, no net below me, no one to show me.”
Kwest earned quite a bit of critical acclaim through This Is My First Album. However, the album didn’t sell particularly well, and the lengthy shelving of the album led to some sour feelings between Kwest and Charnas (they resolved their differences years ago). Kwest continued grinding on the underground, and the album has achieved a cult classic status among heads who know their shit.
Over a decade after This Is My First Album was released, Kwest put out These Are My Unreleased Recordings (2007). The compilation includes some of his demos from the early 1990s, remixes of songs on his debut, and some of the tracks that he recorded while This Is My First Album sat on the shelves. It gives you an even more complete look into Kwest.
So yeah, it’s a shame that Kwest’s talents weren’t fully appreciated in a timely manner. But This Is My First Album still very much stands the test of time. I can’t think of many artists that can pull off dedications to discount clothing stores and raps live from the underworld on the same album and be really funny while doing so.
Listen: