The Show/La-Di-Da-Di: It Takes Two To Make A Thing Go Right

"Part of rap's adhesive is the seamless transition, the sense of continuum, eternity, living with the beat forever"  

 Barry Michael Cooper: Spin Magazine(1986)

Harlem scribe Barry Michael Cooper's synopsis of rap music circa' 86 could also describe the eternal staying power of two of the greatest hip hop records ever recorded. In 1985, rap music was evolving at the speed of light. Just six years removed from the Sugar Hill/Enjoy simulated breakbeat jams a la Rapper's Delight, hip hop music was emerging with newer sounds and styles that were beating older ones into submission. 

Every year since 1979, a series of game-changing records nudged rap towards a nascent cottage industry that was a throwback to rock-and roll/R&B's early days (dubious contracts included). Indie labels run by Blacks, Jews and ethnic whites put out a slew of 12inch rap singles in rapid succession. These imprints had colorful names like Tommy Boy, Def Jam and Sleeping Bag. Beauty and the Beat. Zakia, Select and Next Plateau. Profile and Pop Art. Jive, Vintertainment and Prism/Cold Chillin'.

Just as the rap album drip cascaded into a steady stream of long-players dominated by Whodini's platinum melodies and Run-D.M.C.'s proto-boom bap, a rap double single cut through a sea of Linn Drum-Roland-DMX-driven soliloquies: The Show/La-Di-Da-Di. 

Doug E. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew---UK-born Ricky D and djs Chill Will and Barry Bee dropped a jam thrusting rap music into a whole new space. Based around a live concert concept going back to Rick and Doug's days on the rap contest circuit, The Show bottled up the essence and elusive spontaneity of first generation party-rocker routines failing to transition over to the next-level recorded rap. There was nothing like it in hip hop up to that point. The Show was a rap record in the first order. It also was rooted in black entertainment of yesteryear. Doug played straight man to Rick's cavalier cool.  Their nickel-slick conversational flow was reminiscent of the comedic stop-on-a-dime "incomplete sentence" routine created by seminal black actors Mantan Moreland and Ben Carter pre-dating Run-D.M.C.'s back-and-forth rhyme routines).

The Show's animated storytelling and vocal call-and-response ("Here we go/don't you miss the show!") echoed Cab Calloway and Louis Jordan preening proto-rap stylings from the 1930 and 1940s on records like Jumpin' Jive, Minnie the Moocher and Beans and Cornbread.

                                                                         

                                                                         

 In an '86 Spin Magazine article ("Doug Be Fresh") writer John Leland praised the song for its departure from rap's current chest-beating style. Doug broke down the formula:

"It was a different style of rapping. There was singing in there to show how close that singing and rapping are to each other and it showed how one could lead into the other. It was something out of the ordinary"

Doug rhymed and did the beatbox, imitating drum beats, telephone rings and percussionist Ralph McDonald's breakbeat jam Jam On The Groove. At the end of his rhyme, he let off a sly parting shot at the Fat Boys who'd just sold a million albums doing their version of Doug's beat box. Leland credited The Show's success to "all the home taping and the double deck box" prior to the song's official release. 

Doug was branded by Leland as "the new technology" for his beatbox prowess. Deeply spiritual, Doug explained that the song's purpose was "to get the point across about God." Sampled hooks oh my God  and is it real ("said real fast is Israel") ran throughout the song. Doug was the main man behind The Show's concept and sonic direction, but the song sprung to life at a recording session smack-dab in Harlem's St. Nicholas Projects in building 223---home to Doug's Park East High schoolmate, seventeen year-old Edward Theodore Riley---New Jack Swing's future king.

In a 2017 Red Bull Academy interview, Riley ran down his musical contributions. He added the Inspector Gadget keyboard riffs and tuned down the sounds of his Oberheim  DX drum machine to craft the salt-shaker melody that drove the song. Absent from the recording sessions for The Show, Riley's ideas remained intact on the final product. Inspired by Doug's musical power moves, Riley dropped out of high school to pursue his own career.

La-Di-Da-Di was the sequel to The Show's musical motion picture. Doug reprises the beatbox while Rick repeats his role as hip hop fop side-stepping the clutches of an older suitor with an X-rated brush-off. The records were out-the box smashes and helped move rap past its relative anonymity. In '85, there were only a handful of albums and videos in the marketplace. Rap was still pretty much a 12 inch single affair. Fans outside the tri-state area had no idea what their favorite artists looked like. Back in the old radio days before TV, music couldn't just be ear candy. It had to be visual. The Show  had all the ingredients of a perfect radio. Vivid rhymes with a great storyline. Charismatic voices that jumped out the speaker. You didn't just hear the record. You could see it too.

Hovering over record buttons, fans tuned into rap countdowns across the country rocked to Doug's masterful beatbox demonstrations and slick rhymes. Ricky's detached sex appeal and deadpan humor was a departure from rap's high decibel DJ shoutouts and booming braggadocio. His metrosexualized grooming regimen were filled with product placements of Oil of Olay, Bally of Switzerland, Johnson and Johnson, Polo and Gucci. He crooned Taste of Honey's Sukiyaki ("it's all because of you/I'm feeling sad and blue"). Reaching back to his childhood days in England, he sang the vocal hook from the Beatles' Michelle (''Michelle/ma belle") in his cherrio accent. In just two records, Ricky invented the blueprint for the hip hop personality.

Writer Leland keenly observed that Ricky was "the pursued instead of the pursuer", describing it as "an atypical fantasy based on role reversal." He alerted readers to Ricky's heralded arrive in five words: the sensitive man comes to rap.

Over the next three years, other rappers dissected the formula and created their own versions. Imitations were turning up everywhere. There was Bobby Jimmy's rap parody Gotta Potty. Run-D.M.C went to the well three times with Hit It Run, Perfection and Ragtime. Bad Boys featuring K Love Bad Boys featured a similar Inspector Gadget riff. Just Ice and DMX checked in with LaToya and This Girl Is A Slut. Stetsaonic had Faye.

Aping Ricky D's Michelle/Sukiyaki send-up, Just Ice inserted an old Three Stooges routine ("inch by inch") and jacked Leaving On A Jet Plane by folkies Peter Paul and Mary/John Denver. Stet posse members Daddy-O and Wise revive two dancehall classics: Frankie Paul's Worries In The Dance and Yellowman's Morning Ride jack of Brook Benton's Effortlessly ("higher than the highest mountain/and deeper than the deepest sea").

                                                                     



                                                             

The Show wasn't just a local hit. It was a worldwide smash. Two months after its release, it zoomed into Billboard's Top Five. It won an industry award as best independent 12 inch. The Get Fresh Crew were on Soul Train. They did Tops of the Pops in London. Moving a half-million copies six months after it dropped, it became only the fifth rap single to receive an official gold certification. It was the year's hottest rap record. Despite these heady times, a subtle cloud of role conflict and ambiguity hung over the group. During Leland's interview, Doug positions the Get Fresh Crew as "his group." Ricky is portrayed as "the sideman," brought out midway through their energetic live performances to accompany Doug and djs Barry Bee and Chill Will.

When Leland pressed Doug for Ricky's contributions, Doug's leadership stands firm. Reluctant to "consent to or give credit to" Ricky asserted that his beatbox ("I been doing this a long time") was the most crucial element to the act. Not a big fan of interviews, Ricky is missing in action. Not long after, he would leave for good in pursuit of a his own career. The Get Fresh Crew pressed on as a trio.

Leland's '88 interview with Ricky ("Super Hoe") on the eve of  his solo debut recounts Ricky's reason for the breakup. After a huge show at Madison Square Garden, Rick claims that he was only paid six hundred dollars prompting him to leave the group. Two years later ("I Fought The Law") he blamed the split on "creative differences" side-stepping his post-Show hiatus adrift in a dusty haze of drugs before being signed to Def Jam in '86 by Russell Simmons while  drying out in a "nuthouse" from smoking too much angel dust---accounts confirmed, denied and finally reconfirmed with Simmons in his 2001 memoir Life and Def. 

In a 2017 Sway In The Morning interview, Doug attributed their breakup to youthful ego trips and divide-and-conquer tactics from outside forces during the group's rapid career ascent. Like broken glass, jagged remains of fragmented rap groups are littered all along hip hop's glory road. Run-D.M.C. A Tribe Called Quest. Eric B. and Rakim. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. EPMD. The Treacherous Three. 

Rick and Doug weren't apart for long and eventually found their way back to each other. Doug stood by Rick during his legal troubles. Rick made a cameo in Doug's Iight video. During a pair of triumphant performances at the BET and Soul Train Awards, they rocked a crowd of multiple generations were recited their records word for word. 

Wisely retaining their publishing rights---a major feat in '85, Doug recalls being a teenaged millionaire, stashing his money in the closet until his mom---in typical West Indian prudence, made him open up a bank account at Merrill Lynch. Revenue generated from samples, remakes and interpolations filled Rick's coffers, keeping him in the public eye during his legal and immigration troubles grounding his solo career just as he was taking flight.

 Doug and Rick are the Poitier and Cosby of rap, permanently joined at hip hop's hip. They are dope apart but together, they're even doper. There's a certain magic that occurs when they  unite. Oran Juice Jones said it best: you without me is like cornflake without the milk.  Doug E. Fresh and The Get Fresh Crew's put points on the board via The Show and La-Di-Da-Di sealing their legendary status in the rap game. Other groups may have had longer runs and deeper catalogs but sometimes---it just takes two to make a thing go right.