Brooklyn: Population 2,231,000. The New York City borough is a veritable capital of hip hop culture, with high profile residents including Digable Planets, MC Lyte, Jeru the Damaja, the Notorious B.I.G., Gang Starr, The Fugees and Black Moon. The latest b-boys to stomp out of this rap mecca and make a move on the rap scene in their unlaced Timberlands are rappers Tek and Steele, better known as Smif-N-Wessun. Their biggest hit, "Bucktown," is a pseudonym for the music hotbed. "The environment of Brooklyn has always been to take what you need to succeed," says Steele. Like the Wu-Tang Clan of Black Moon, Smif-N-Wessun's style is strictly hardcore. Typical of West Coast rap, the cuts on Dah Shinin' (Nervous), their first album, are heavy on lyrics and light on R&B backbeats. Dah Shinin' debuted at number one on the rap chart in its first week of release. The hit "Bucktown" jacked the rap charts for a solid month. Keeping it real is a philosophy Tek and Steele picked up from their mentors in Black Moon. The duo get to perform as guest MCs on Black Moon's Enta Da Stage and open for Black Moon and Das EFX on their nationwide tour. Their opportunity to "shine" in that tour precipitated the album's title, Dah Shinin'. Summing up their style, Steele says, "We're just conversatin', speakin', talkin', puttin' facts into a rhyme so that they sound good to the ear.
Bucktown, the breakout single by Smif n Wessun of Brooklyn, NY, is one of those songs that rips into radio by sheer force of popular demand, bucking expectations and giving new meaning to the term "pop music." But "Bucktown" is no novelty, and its proud descriptions of Brooklyn as "home of the original gun clappers" sure isn't pop in the usual sense. The track has an underproduced skeletal appeal; the terse, muscular rhymes by 21-year-old rappers Tek and Steele are as compelling as they are simple and grim. "Bucktown" took off so briskly, selling 75,000 copies in just three weeks, that the duo was a long way from having a full-length album completed to cash in on the single's obvious appeal. "The inspiration for the song was straight-up Brooklyn, USA," says Steele. "Bucktown is everywhere. We've been to places like Missouri, and we can tell you it's the same shit goin' on as we see in Brooklyn." As far as explaining the song's runaway success, Steele says, "I think if the idea could be bottled, then everybody would be making hit jams and selling 75,000 in one week. We're just representing ourselves, and people pick up on it. That's why we say, 'All heads recognize real heads on the rise.' This is classic New York City hip-hop! Continue to revisit Dah Shinin' below...
