Happy 25th Anniversary to Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s second studio album N***a Please, originally released September 14, 1999.
Russell Jones, a.k.a. Ol’ Dirty Bastard of the Wu-Tang Clan, was a figure of folklore. During his all too brief life, he was simultaneously an incarnation of a trickster god and a drunken Dionysus-like deity. When I paid tribute to his debut album Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995), I wrote that there was no conceivable reason that it worked as well as it did. That’s even more true for his sophomore release N***a Please, released 25 years ago. It’s like one of those rock albums from the early to mid-1970s where the artist/band has clearly succumbed to the excesses associated with fame, only it comes together brilliantly.
The Brooklyn superstar released N***a Please during the intersection of two phenomena. The first of which was massive turmoil in his personal life. Things had been going well enough for one of the most iconic members of the Wu-Tang Clan during the spring/summer of 1998. He was basking in the glow of one of the biggest hits of his career, his scene-stealing performance on R&B singer Mya’s and the Fugees’ Pras Michel’s “Ghetto Superstar.” He had also just re-christened himself with the latest of his many monikers: Big Baby Jesus.
But as 1998 turned to 1999, he couldn’t keep out of the headlines for all of the wrong reasons. There were frequent arrests, from everything to drug possession to driving without a license to owning a bulletproof vest (a no-no for convicted felons) to making terroristic threats. He seemed like another troubled musician headed for prison or the grave. Or both.
At the same time, his crew was fighting hard to maintain its domination of hip-hop music. Wu-Tang Clan had spent the first three years of its existence consistently hitting home runs, either through their group albums or solo projects. But after the crew released its second project, the Wu-Tang Forever (1997) double album, some of the bloom seemingly started coming off the rose. Debut albums by Inspektah Deck and RZA (as Bobby D.I.G.I.T.A.L.) and sophomore albums by Method Man and GZA, weren’t bad, but they weren’t living up to the high standards that the group had set for itself. They were still a few months away from the nadir that was Raekwon’s Immobilarity (1999), but there was some definite uneasiness associated with the Clan.
In the midst of this, Ol’ Dirty Bastard released N*** Please, one of the most chaotic hip-hop releases ever. The recording sessions are apparently stuff of industry legend, described as drug-powered bacchanals, spread out across a total of four different studios in New York City and Los Angeles. ODB makes frequent casual references to his drug use throughout the album, adding to the album’s messy atmosphere.
But out of that chaos, a pretty damn good album emerged. It’s not as good as his first effort, but it’s still a unique release, giving audiences a peek into Big Baby Jesus’ unbridled id. In a strange way, it’s one of the better sophomore albums from one of the core Wu-Tang members, succeeding on its sheer brashness.
Much of N***a Please is uninhibited bedlam, “led” by Big Baby Jesus himself. Fueled by a mixture of adrenaline, alcohol, and who knows what kind of drugs, he bulldozes his way across the album like a Tasmanian Devil on a cocaine binge. Often ODB is barely coherent as he screams, shrieks, belches, and bellow mumbles throughout songs like “Rollin’ With You” and “You Don’t Want To Fuck With Me,” the latter of which is bereft of anything beyond rudimentary structure. Your mileage may vary with what he presents, but it’s never, ever boring.
Listen to the Album:
Of Ol’ Dirty’s truly unhinged exhibitions, “I Can’t Wait” is the best. Produced by DJ Irv and Dat N***a Rev (another Murder Inc. affiliate), he attempts to deliver rapid-fire rhymes through a double-time flow and is “here to make you scream” over a sample of the theme from TJ Hooker. The verses themselves are pretty whatever, but ODB really shines during the song’s outro, where he rattles off the most amazing list of shout-outs ever recorded. After giving props to fellow artists like Luther Campbell, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and OutKast, he thanks: “all the DJs across the world,” “them crazy n****s in parts of the world that I never been to,” Eskimos, the submarines the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, “all the munchkins playing hopscotch,” and the schoolteachers.
“I Want Pussy” is another deranged endeavor, serving as ODB’s screed against women attempting to get money from him by claiming that he fathered a child with them. “Bitch, you obey me, you better not betray me,” he asserts. “Be calling no cop saying, ‘This is his baby!’” He finishes the track by repeatedly chanting, “Yeah, my momma cannot protect y’all.” Like vast swaths of N***a Please, it’s not particularly enlightened stuff, but it’s still perversely entertaining.
It turns out that ODB has good chemistry with The Neptunes, who produced three tracks for the album. Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo were ascending to their early/mid ’00s peak, but the pair established one of their greatest strengths on N***a Please. Specifically, their ability to create tracks that appealed to wider audiences but still enhanced the strengths of the artist.
“Got Your Money,” the album’s first single, is one of their early production triumphs. With its plucky bassline, lively synths, and soul-soaked vocals by Kelis on the hook, it’s one of the most upbeat songs about pimping ever recorded. ODB exhibits his suitably unusual charm as he lays things on thick in hopes of making sure his employees pay him in a timely manner. The Neptunes also produce the album opening “Recognize,” which features Pharrell crooning the chorus and Chris Rock doing an extended riff as part of the song’s intro. Rock’s appearance was apparently made to return the favor for ODB recording a few skits for his Bigger and Blacker (1998) comedy album. ODB gives his statement of purpose here, explaining how he’s quick to make a scene and literally tear up the club at the slightest provocation.
Some of ODB’s team-ups with RZA provide the album with some of its highlights. The album’s title track is as close as Osiris gets to delivering the more traditional Wu-Tang sound, as he rhymes over a bluesy guitar riff and horn blasts. ODB reins himself in a bit, rhyming with a bit more focus. “Burning ya ’til you faint, y’all; Y’all n****s shooting blanks y'all,” he snarls. “I’m fucking my vest, drive an armored tank y'all.” He mutters and slurs his way through “Dirt Dog,” rapping a stream of non-sequiturs over an ominous bassline.
Big Baby Jesus takes a pair of bizarre yet entertaining detours on N***a Please, both in the form of cover songs. He belts out an appropriately boisterous version of Rick James’ “Cold Blooded,” altering some of the lyrics and adding a rapped third verse to give the song the feel of a bona fide ODB track.
On an album like this, it really shouldn’t be a surprise that ODB pulls off a respectable rendition of the jazz standard “Good Morning, Heartache,” first popularized by Billie Holiday in the mid-1940s. Singer Lil Mo, an affiliate of Missy Elliot, does a lot of the heavy lifting on the song, giving a melodic vocal performance. But the song is still unmistakably ODB’s, as he croons in his deep baritone, providing off-the-cuff ad-libs all the while.
“Getting High” is a further digression, as ODB isn’t even featured on it. Instead, a trio of Wu-Tang affiliates, including 12 O’Clock, La the Darkman, and the horribly named Shorty Shit Stain, handle rhyming duties. The track, produced by Buddha Monk, is entertaining, sounding like one of the better tracks recorded by Wu-Tang offshoots that dotted the hip-hop landscape in the late 1990s.
ODB ends N***a Please by going back to playing things fast and loose. “All In Together Now” is a tribute to his early days with cousins GZA and RZA. He leads things off by loudly proclaiming he’s “a dalmatian… Motherfucker, I’m white and I’m Black! What?” He delivers a verse that’s heavily steeped in the 5-percenter ideology that many of the Wu-Tang Clan followed, before going back to a routine that he, GZA, and RZA delivered as members of the All In Together Now crew in their early days.
“Cracker Jack,” a RZA-produced bonus cut, is the album’s version of “Harlem World” from ODB’s debut. Much of the song sounds like it was freestyled, with Big Baby Jesus stringing together seemingly random series of sex-related rhymes. It also continues to be a source of my infinite amusement that he pronounces “about” as “a-bat,” so that it sorta rhymes with “whacked.”
N***a Please was the final official album that ODB delivered while he was still alive. He honestly didn’t even make that many more appearances on record before his death in late 2004, owing much to his incarceration throughout the early ’00s. Ol’ Dirty was an expert at harnessing anarchy and transforming it into something that succeeds despite all conventional wisdom. It’s a miracle that we got two albums out of the man. We’re even more blessed that they were as great as they turned out to be.
Listen: