To the legendary Brooklyn rapper Dana Dane, one of the most important albums in hip-hop history comes from British-born rapper Slick Rick and was titled The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.
In this episode of Best Albums, Soren Baker asks Dana Dane to take us back to the scene of New York after the success of “La-Di-Da-Di.” Dana Dane says, “New York City was on fire. They changed the course that hip-hop was going by having the storytelling rhyme. At the time, everyone wanted to get into that storytelling rhyme.”
Soren and Dana start to talk about the first single off of The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, “Teenage Love.”
Soren explains how this song was sonically different from Slick Rick’s previous material. Dana Dane relays how he was in the studio as Slick Rick was making “Teenage Love” and that the song took him by surprise because it was a slow song and it was so different.
Dana then explains how Slick Rick produced that song and most of the album. Dana says other than “Teacher, Teacher” and “Let’s Get Crazy,” which did not have Slick Rick’s imprint on them, Slick Rick produced the rest of the hits on the album.
Soren Baker expresses that on “Hey Young World” Slick Rick showed another side of his storytelling.
“When I think about ‘Hey Young World,’ that song spoke to how he wanted to see himself doing the right thing,” Dana Dane adds. “It was like a song to himself. ‘Listen, the world is crazy. You can fall off, but fall back on, man. It is going to be all right.'”
Dana explains how the first song on the album was “Treat Her like A Prostitute.” Dana relays that if you were new to Slick Rick and the first thing you heard was “Treat Her Like A Prostitute,” well I am sure it caught a lot of people by surprise.
Soren Baker switches gears and begins to talk about Slick Rick’s biggest song, “Children’s Story.”
Soren asks Dana if he knows why “Children’s Story” was written the way that is was.
“Rick was into the telling the story and getting it out,” Dana replies. “That was his thing. I don’t even know why he did it like, that but it was dope… I think it just talked to every kid and grown ups about bedtime stories. It was the story itself about a little kid who took the wrong path. That was happening every day in the hood. The story read true in the hood.”
As for the legacy of Slick Rick’s The Great Adventures of Slick Rick, Dana says it will go down as one of the greatest storytelling albums of all time and that it also set the bar for multiple characters on a record.