Grand Daddy I.U. — Smooth Assassin

I save, partially, the shiny cover where Ayub "Grand Daddy I.U." Bey stands out in black with a questionable scarf-hat combination, illuminated by street lamps in the NY night. Bey was born in Queens and was raised in Hempstead, Long Island, New York. His older brother Kay Cee encouraged him to begin performing. In the late eighties, Bey records a demo tape and gave it to Biz Markie, that signed him to Cold Chillin' Records in 1989. The next year, Grand Daddy I.U. debuts with his first studio album.

The production chosen by Biz Markie is accessible in its simplicity, it doesn't differ too much from the rest of the game: jazzy-funky, minimal and skeletal rhythms, solid samples from James Brown, Blackbyrds, Grover Washington Jr., Lyn Collins, Bob James, Melvin Bless, Donald Byrd, The Pointer Sisters and Ronnie Mitchell, with rare variations for the ballads and the beloved crossover attempts. Even the Queens MC rapping doesn't do too much to stand out from the other performers in the scene of the early nineties: he delivers in a regular and bland way, with an extravagant rapping founded almost exclusively on the braggadocio without being able to bring out a semblance of tracks above the average (out of 16). Kay Cee is credited for the scratches, the cousin of Biz Markie Cutmaster Cool V co-produces the entire tape.

Like a blind date that went very badly, his trivially simple arguments end practically right now, he has nothing left to say and everything ends well ahead of time. The disc is sunken to the third cut, with a sort of ballad; the record seems to have risen, but another blow comes to his back with the reggae crossover ("Gals Dem So Hot").

Released by Cold Chillin' Records, distributed by Reprise Records and by Warner Bros. Records, the disk is closed by an R&B ballad, "Sugar Free": the joint revolves around the sample from the homonymous song by the Juicy group, where Mary Brown plays Katreese Barnes, but is then completely killed by Miss Jones' catchy chorus five years after in the AZ iconic hit "Sugar Hill". If you close your eyes and you have an hour to lose, yes, maybe you can even listen to it completely, but it's not an essential LP.

Rating: 6/10.