Brand Nubian – “Who Wanna Be A Star? (It’s Brand Nu Baby) / Just Don’t Learn”
Obviously, this was one of those records I came across at the Salvation Army or Value Village, and thought to myself, “Neat, a rap record from 2004 with a funky looking early 2000’s cover” and know nothing about this group. To my understanding they’re Grand Puba (center), Sadat X (left) and Lord Jamar (right) and they’ve been doing this since about 1989. This single comes from their 2004 album “Fire in the Hole” – reviews for that album seem to be mixed, with critics citing it as “solid but unexciting” and done with “sophomoric potty humor.”
Nonetheless, let’s put it on the turntable and give it a spin.
The A-Side is the song “Who Wanna Be a Star? (It’s Brand Nu Baby!)” and of course, we get a clean version, a dirty version and the instrumental. (As you do.) The music itself is not bad, I’m currently playing the clean version, so rhymes / lyrics aren’t bad. Mention of Biggie in there. A bit repetitive. I’m going to skip ahead to the ‘dirty’ version, see how the lyrics come out on that one. I think the dirty version is just dropping the N word with the hard R. Oh, we got a fuck. But still, going with the critics on this one. Solid, but unexciting. Pokemon reference. A-Side closes out with the instrumental. The beat is good.
The B-Side, I’m going to do what nature intended, and skip right to the ‘dirty’ version of “Just Don’t Learn” and this one seems to be a more solid track, beat wise and lyrically. I do understand when the critics say that they try to paint a ‘serious social commentary‘ because this song is definitely the better one of the two. It’s not exactly my style of rap and hip-hop, I’m more of a West Coat hip-hop type of guy, Tupac, NWA, MC Eiht and so forth.
Catalog Number:
BBG-SI-27
Credits:
Executive Producers – Chuck Wilson & Lord Jamar Allah
Mastered by Emily Lazer at the Lodge, NYC
Assistant Mastering – Sarah Register
Photography – Dennis Edwards
Design by Jeff Chenault for eleven07 / jchenault@eleven07.com
Released:
2004
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