Happy 30th Anniversary to Poor Righteous Teachers’ debut album Holy Intellect, originally released March 16, 1990.
By 1990, there was an established lane for “conscious” hip-hop music. Groups like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions, Stetsasonic, and Jungle Brothers, among others, spent considerable taking a militant stand against white supremacy and racist power structures within the United States and across the globe.
But as the new decade began, the field of socially conscious hip-hop artists would continue to expand. Many artists in this new resurgent movement possessed a rougher, less polished, but just as confrontational “street” edge. Poor Righteous Teachers were at the forefront of this crop and their debut album Holy Intellect exemplified what conscious hip-hop was becoming in the ’90s.
Poor Righteous Teachers were made up of led emcee Timothy “Wise Intelligent” Grimes, Kerry “Culture Freedom” Williams and their DJ Scott “Father Shaheed” Phillips. The group’s name comes from the Nation of Gods and Earths (a.k.a. The Five Percent Nation), which the members of the group were affiliated with. Wise Intelligent incorporated many of the teachings and philosophies espoused by the Islamic-based faith within the fabric of Holy Intellect.
Poor Righteous Teachers were far from the first rappers who were members of the NGE—crews from The World Famous Supreme Team to hip-hop gods like Big Daddy Kane and Rakim counted themselves amongst the ranks of the sect. Along with super emcees like Lakim Shabazz and Chill Rob G, they had been incorporating parts of its teachings into their music and its iconography into their music videos during the late ’80s. But along with groups like Brand Nubian, PRT were part of a growing wave of socially conscious rappers who placed their faith at the forefront.
Wise Intelligent was PRT’s de facto frontman, handling the vast majority of the rapping on Holy Intellect. He infused his rhymes with a mixture of teachings of the NGE and a street edge. While Wise and crew strove to follow their teachings to the letter, they were still inextricably tied to the rougher side of life in their neighborhood, and had experienced using less-than-legal means in order to get by. Wise has said that this was central to the message of PRT’s music: that you could be poor and occasionally engage in beyond-legal activity, but still live a righteous life.
Stylistically, there were few emcees like Wise Intelligent at the time. He frequently used a sing-songy flow tinged with influences from dancehall artists. He was especially good at rocking over unconventional beats, occasionally slightly offbeat and overall unorthodox.
Wise demonstrates his unique rhyme talent on “Rock Dis Funky Joint,” the best known song on Holy Intellect and across the group’s entire discography. It’s also not a conventional pop rap hit by any means, constructed from an unconventional sample of War’s “Slipping Into Darkness.” Wise rides the track with a similarly off-center delivery, filled with lots of starts and stops, as he gets “smooth with roughness,” adeptly fusing stylistic innovation with conscious content. The beat is similarly interesting, as the music drops out and comes back at precisely the right time.
Nearly all of Holy Intellect was produced by Anthony “Tony D” DePaula, an underappreciated legend and one of the architects of the Trenton hip-hop scene. Tony D did production for most of the rappers in Trenton during the ’80s and early ’90s, first linking up with Wise during the late ’80s. His production style was raw and stripped down, relying on soulful samples and rugged drums. It fit in well with PRT’s musical style, which they called “Butt Naked,” named after the slang-term used for PCP.
Eric “IQ” Gray also contributed production to a pair of tracks on the album (“Speaking Upon a Blackman” and “Words From the Wise”), which are in the same soulful and straightforward vein as the rest of Holy Intellect. Gray first came into PRT’s orbit by distributing their first single, “Time To Say Peace,” on his record label Northside Productions, the year before.
Tony D handled the production on this first release, sampling and re-flipping Soul II Soul’s “Jazzie’s Groove,” while also incorporating additional elements from “Back To Life.” Wise used his four verses to set the tone of PRT’s music moving forward, rapping, “As I step with my rep I let / The intellect flow to show and prove.”
Overall, PRT’s chemistry with Tony D was pretty amazing, as the two pushed each other to make monumental music. The album’s title track made for an unorthodox second single. It’s not a conventional club song, in that it doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator, as Wise spreads knowledge over a fast-paced track, clocking in at around 115 BPM. It harkens back to a time when rappers stretched their limits by rapping over much faster beats. Here, Wise excels, rapping, “Intellect the wisest manifestation of a thought / PRT, Poor Righteous Teachers teaching from the heart.”
Though Tony D is rightfully recognized for his production brilliance on Holy Intellect, he does get some time on the mic. He even drops the album’s first verse, “rocking some of that rubbish” on “Can I Start This?” Wise was apparently not a fan of Tony D’s lyrical ability, but allowed him to get on the mic regardless. The song also features the album’s only full verse from Culture Freedom, who’s better than Tony D at rapping, but still a ways behind Wise.
Wise shows versatility in styles on Holy Intellect, demonstrating that he’s comfortable rapping on any type of beat. He races across “Strictly Ghetto,” the busiest track on the album, detailing his commitment to using his position as an emcee to spread knowledge through the ghettoes across the country. He then switches gears, at least in terms of tempo, on “So Many Teachers,” interplaying with Culture Freedom over an expertly manipulated sample of Millie Jackson’s “Tell Her It’s Over.” Again Wise uses the song to educate, in this case giving the masses a view into the faith of the NGE.
PRT channels its hardcore bona fides on “Style Dropped/Lessons Taught.” Over a sample from Eddie Kendricks’ “Girl You Need To Change My Mind,” Wise launches into an extended screed against wack emcees, fake teachers, and other assorted shady characters. He repeatedly incorporates multiple disses to fellow Trenton-based hip-hop luminaries like Tim Taylor and rapper YZ on the song. In fact, Wise sprays sustained acrimony towards both throughout Holy Intellect.
I’ve never been exactly clear on the genesis of the PRT/YZ beef. At least some of the issue with Taylor seems to stem from an aborted attempt by PRT to put out “Time To Say Peace” through his Diversity Records. It ended poorly. However, Wise and YZ’s issues with each other apparently predate the failed release. Making things weirder was the fact that Tony D did extensive production work for YZ simultaneously.
Holy Intellect does include what I would still consider the bane of my existence: the hip-hop love song. But, as these things go, “Shakiyla” isn’t awful, existing on the higher end of the spectrum in terms of quality. According to Wise in Brian Coleman’s Check the Technique, the song is the first rap that he even wrote, at the age 14 or 15, about his vision of the perfect woman. Here he expresses his appreciation for the fictional love of his life over a sample of Zapp’s “Be Alright,” while Culture Freedom croons (badly) on the chorus. The song is a little cheesy, but there have been much, much worse.
The album ends with another of Holy Intellect’s best tracks, “Poor Righteous Teachers,” the group’s theme song. Again with vocal assists from Culture Freedom, Wise fires off rapid-fire clipped phrases over a vocal sample from Quincy Jones’ “Gula Matari.” Tony D adds backwards-masked drums from the same track to give the song an eerier, ethereal feel. Wise again strikes a balance between informing the masses and speaking to the power of his words. “Let the lord proceed to take heed to what’s right,” he raps. “As I feed degrees indeed I bust the mic.” He later adds “Light of the insight shows the third eye / You tamper with God, conceive the dis, you die!”
Holy Intellect was the group’s most successful album, nearly being certified Gold, and “Rock Dis Funky Joint” is recognized as a universal classic. I’d personally argue that the group would continue to improve as the ’90s progressed, with both Pure Poverty (1991) and Black Business (1993) allowing the group to refine their music. Their final album, New World Order (1996), was a similarly strong entry in their discography.
Wise Intelligent continues to rap and release music today, demonstrating the enduring power of his words. Along the way, he’s become an elder statesman among “conscious” emcees. Even three decades later, Wise remains a firebrand, dedicated to the statement of purpose that PRT made with Holy Intellect. Time has passed, but the power still endures.
LISTEN: