Def IV – Sample Pioneers?

The Def IV Nice & Hard album was always something I went back to when it was released in 1988. As the fourth album released on the Rap-A-Lot label, this group of New York transplants, which consisted of two brothers – Vicious Lee and Jon B – beat maker and DJ Lonnie Mac and vocalist Prince E-Z-Cee (DJ Ready Red was apparently an early member before being recruited by the Ghetto Boys). Given that three quarters of the group were DJ’s, it’s no surprise that there is a lot going on musically, with many tracks delivering a layered, sophisticated sampling style, constant scratches and extra breaks thrown in all over the place to keep shit moving.

When I spoke with Vicious Lee in 2007, he revealed that work on the album had begun in 1986, which makes the Def IV the first group to sample Average White Band‘s ‘School Boy Crush,’ Barry White‘s ‘Playing Your Game, Baby’ and C.J. & Co‘s ‘We Got Our Own Thing.’ Lee told me that ‘School Boy Crush’ was suggested by a local radio jock in order to appeal high school kids returning from summer vacation (hence the literal interpretation by E-Z-Cee), while ‘Our Own Style’ served as the inspiration for Teddy Riley to flip the same song for Heavy D (‘We Got Our Own Thing’) to much commercial rewards after negotiations broke down between Teddy and the Rap-A-Lot brass when he offered to remix some Def IV material. ‘Obsession’ is easily a top five rap ballad from the era on account of being the first time I’d heard that loop flipped, and for chronicling the melodrama of E-Z-Cee’s failed attempts to get with the object of his affections, which turn out to be a series of increasingly pathetic wet dreams.