Steve 'Flash' JuonThere are only two D-Nice albums — “Call Me D-Nice” and “To Tha Rescue.” In the words of his Boogie Down Productions cohort KRS-One, “Why Is That?” One source alleges that Derrick Jones and Jive Records clashed over the creative direction of D’s music, and that rather than fight them over it he simply peaced out of the music business altogether. It’s not as though the decision hurt Jones in the slightest. He had a daughter a few years later, got into web design and photography, and even dipped into the world of live streaming during the global pandemic and was lauded for “giving people hope” at such a dark time in our lives. Things worked out just fine for D-Nice.
One sign of this tension with Jive might be heard in “Time to Flow” though. To be honest it seemed like a hell of a crossover at the time — the Tommy Boy Records sensations Naughty by Nature joining forces with D-Nice on a rival label’s album for a single rapped on and produced by the group (though I presume DJ Kay Gee is who really gets the musical props). The piano laced track certainly has a harder edge than anything on D’s debut, and the timing couldn’t have hurt given their self-titled album dropped in September of ’91 while D-Nice’s dropped a few months later in November. Well… it would have been nice timing if “Time to Flow” had come out as a single in ’91. It didn’t.
Instead it was the self-produced “25 Ta Life” that came out first, featuring an excellent Isley Brothers sample from “I Turned You On” and a cautionary tale about violence you’d expect from a streetwise and politically oriented member of BDP. It’s a good song, and one I still fuck with nearly a quarter of a century later, but it stalled at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart and never got any further. Incredibly the single with Naughty By Nature a year later should have done better given how hot that group was at the time and it did worse, peaking at No. 23. These are the kinds of things that lead to tension between an artist and a label. D might have felt Jive wasn’t doing enough to promote him, and Jive might have felt D was too politically conscious for an emerging era of gangster rap. The two sides weren’t going to see eye to eye on it and things just fell apart.
That wasn’t the only relationship that fell apart though. Before the recording of “To Tha Rescue” it was well established that D was part of BDP, and as such it wasn’t surprising to hear KRS-One’s cameo on the song “Rhymin’ Skills.” A year later though on BDP’s “Sex and Violence” things had changed. KRS went out of his way to disavow D-Nice in the liner notes of the album along with a slew of former friends and colleagues ranging from Jamal-Ski to his ex-wife Ms. Melodie, who he separated from shortly before its release. Ouch. I’m sure Derrick knew exactly what was going on and this didn’t catch him off guard, but see your former friend go from being “The Blastmaster” to blasting your ass had to be depressing. D might have also felt without the support of KRS-One/BDP behind him that his solo career wasn’t going to sustain a third album, so he made the choice to step away before he flopped.
If you had to go out with only two albums though “To Tha Rescue” was an excellent swan song. The Skeff Anselm (“he gets props too”) produced title track is a bouncy affair that has only improved with age. “I’ll never ask you to praise me like a statue” could even be read as a subtle jab at KRS-One’s ego, although I doubt he intended it that way at the time. Derrick was never going to win a comparison to Kris then or now, but in retrospect he was far more than the DJ and producer of BDP who got a record deal “just because.” He really stands on his own as a lyricist on tracks like funky tracks like “No, No, No” where he stands on his principles as a man and vows to not be “a gangster rapper who holds up a gun.” Respect.
If I’m going to knock Derrick for anything it’s that he forgot to credit E-Marvelous on the back cover of the album for “And There U Have It,” even though he’s clearly as a guest star who D-Nice mentions at the beginning of the song in a shout out before passing him the mic. Why? It’s incomprehensible. The Carl Bourelly produced “Get In Touch With Me” also features uncredited singing from Roz, and even though she sounds like a lesser T-Boz, that doesn’t merit not giving her the recognition she deserves. Even though it’s kind of a cheesy quiet storm crossover attempt, D still made me laugh with these bars: “I’m not Father MC, Big Daddy (Kane) or Cool J, but ‘I’ll Do 4 U’ and ‘Get the Job Done’ ‘Around the Way.'” You win Derrick, I like the song now.
To this day I’m still disheartened by the way Boogie Down Productions fell apart and how rapidly that break up came in real time while I was still in my teens. People think life moves fast in the era of social media but I’ll tell you it wasn’t moving any slower back in the early 90’s. I’m just happy that if he had to go out like that, D-Nice went out with a strong final album instead of one that showed a lack of focus. He would have had every excuse given his crew was falling apart and he was at odds with his record label but he turned in a solid effort despite all the distractions.