Happy 25th Anniversary to Black Sheep’s second studio album Non-Fiction, originally released December 6, 1994.
Andres “Dres” Titus, of true-school hip-hop duo Black Sheep, has spoken in interviews of how the group name was chosen as a reference to the differences between them and the rest of the Native Tongues collective. Dres’ former life as a petty criminal and subsequent jail time was at odds with the positivity and Afrocentric musings of early music from the Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, leaving Dres and his partner Mista Lawnge feeling like outsiders. Black Sheep’s classic debut, 1991’s A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, underlined the disparity between them and their Native Tongues cohorts. It is, however, an album that still fits inside the general wheelhouse of the wider collective.
It would be three years until Black Sheep released another album. By then the Native Tongues movement had been declared dead by De La Soul, making Black Sheep even more of an outlier. 1994’s Non-Fiction achieved none of the critical or commercial success of A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, but it was nevertheless a solid contribution to what turned out to be a vintage year for hip-hop.
The most noticeable thing about Non-Fiction is that Mista Lawnge raps on it, not just Dres. It is easy to see why Mista Lawnge was tempted to step from behind the boards and take his spot in the limelight, but he’s not a gifted rapper in comparison to Dres, and his inadequacies only serve to highlight the advanced skill of his partner even more.
Dres’ hard-edged but tongue-in-cheek, nursery-rhyme flow was a major contributor to what made A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing great. His lyrics can be deep and serious one minute, funny and full of sexual innuendo the next, and thankfully the same formula was applied to Non-Fiction. For instance, on standouts “B.B.S.” and “E.F.F.E.C.T.,” Dres playfully shifts from schoolyard rhymes to threats of violence in mere seconds, rhyming, “No need to doubt it / New York's got my loyalty / Boogie Down, astounding sound, representing royalty / Oops-a-daisy, maybe, oops-a-daisy / Boots upside the head of n****s who played D” and “Black Sheep, Black Sheep, where have you been, where? / Black Sheep, everything you do is cashmere / Yeah, I travel upward, cause I come from Down South / just when you try to counter, my hook's in your mouth / Baah! You can't stop me, I do what I wanna / I know you wanna, so yo, come on / I Got skills for dills, give chills to mills / My style of wild is makin’ piles of dollar bills / So 'fleeex,’ and it's time to crack necks / Punks fuck around and get a chest full or Gore-Tex.”
For the soundscape, Mista Lawnge and Dres continue with more of what we got on A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, which is not a bad thing at all. The “jazz rap” label was already becoming played out by 1994, but Non-Fiction is rooted in the sound championed on Black Sheep’s first album, and by groups like Gang Starr, A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets through the early-mid 90s. The jazz influence is overtly obvious on song like “City Lights,” but more nuanced on a track such as “North South East West,” which samples the same sinister trumpet from Bill Chase’s “Open Up Wide” as used in 1992 by House of Pain on “House of Pain Anthem.”
The only other member of the Native Tongues to feature on Non-Fiction is Chi-Ali. Having been mentored by Dres from an early age, his appearance on “Freak, Y'all" showed how much potential Chi-Ali wasted when he was sent to prison for a lengthy bid in the early aughts for killing an associate. The previously-mentioned “E.F.F.E.C.T.” also features two other ‘90s rap icons, Showbiz and A.G. from the Diggin’ in the Crates crew. Like Mista Lawnge, Showbiz is known primarily as a producer who only occasionally stepped to the mic. Having a verse from Mista Lawnge and a spoken outro by Showbiz makes “E.F.F.E.C.T.” a bit of a rarity.
Non-Fiction also introduced us to Dres’ protégés The Legion (emcees Molecules, Diceman and Chucky Smash). The hardcore Bronx group followed up their appearance on “We Boys” with the forgotten-classic Theme + Echo = Krill (1994) on Dres’ own short-lived label, and still work with Dres to this day.
Black Sheep broke up not long after Non-Fiction. Dres has worked hard to keep the name alive with sporadic releases under the group name but with little-to-no involvement from Mista Lawnge. The highlight of these occasional releases was the 2010 Black Sheep single “Birds of a Feather,” which reunited Dres with his Native Tongues alumni Q-Tip, Trugoy and Mike Gee. Dres has recently been sharing details of a collection of J Dilla beats he’s been given access to. It’s an interesting prospect, and another link back to A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, who worked extensively with the late producer.
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