In 1988 childhood friends Aqil "A-Plus" Davidson, Markell "Marky Mark" Riley and Brandon "B-Doggs" Mitchell form the new jack swing / hip-hop group from Harlem, New York, Wrecks-N-Effect. The trio sign with Atlantic Records who adds a fourth member, Keith "K.C." Hanns. With this formation, Wrecks-N-Effect publishes a self-titled EP: produced by Markell Riley and Gene Griffin, is one of the first act in hip-hop to refers to the mafia in a title track with "We the Mafia".
The group publish a couple of singles, "Go For What U Know" and "Let's Do It Again", both ignored by fans and critics like the whole EP: Wrecks-N-Effect doesn't get the response they expect from the public and gives up the fourth member, returning to being a trio and also leaving Atlantic, guilty of failing to adequately promote their efforts, a common trait among basically all of the label's rap artists. In 1989, the group sign a new deal with Motown and later that year they release a eponymous LP. The record is produced by Markell Riley, Redhead Kingpin and Wrecks-N-Effect, mixed by Teddy Riley. The cover presents similarities with that of the self-titled album by new jack swing group Guy, produced by Teddy Riley.
Clashy and irregular record. Attention should probably be paid to decent production, if there was one. Here little's good and there are too many things that don't work from the first cut, such as the just decent and tight beat, the minimal and skinny drum machine and samples looped really with laziness, I have no idea how you manage to loop badly wasting two cuts by James Brown and one by George Clinton on the same track, but the guy in production did it, chapeau. Decent delivery syncopated little flowing, cumbersome, the rapper here's struggling and has a very bad breath control, bad cut. The second one still allows itself to sample James Brown, a simplistic decent rhythm and hardcore delivery with a flow that just doesn't want to go on, the drum machine looks indifferently from a distance.
We get, suffering, to "Juicy": samples the homonymous track of Mtube which will then be forever related to hip hop by Biggie's timeless classic, but here it's used as food for a dark and simplistic beat consisting of a cadenced and skinny drum machine; nothing particularly irritating, except that this decent rhythm full of elements turns out to be a ballad. Hook sung lame, R&B rhythm, delivery sung, hook incredibly lame, track to skip. "Club Head" isn't much better — skinny and hard production with a lean and minimal drum machine, decent delivery and bad hook — but instead "Soul Man" is: another ballad, lol, but what kind of album is it?! Not even on The Real Roxanne's album are there so many ballads, but unlike this album, I understand why they're there and she can sing. Here, ballad rhythm with church organ that makes the rhythm, slow and minimal drum machine, delivery between singing and rapping, silly from silly for sillies, ridiculous hook, to skip immediately.
"Deep" is the shortest and, perhaps for this, best piece of the LP: simple, essential beat, the drum machine does the same thing it did on previous choices, samples of a JB's song and a splendid jazzy bridge on the hook simple and decent delivery. It didn't take long to create a couple of tracks like this, instead the last part is as shaky as the first: sampling James Brown, JB's and Rakim isn't enough to save this album from the dustbin, the beats skinny and the stubborn and recalcitrant drum machine they row against. An easy production with minimal and skeletal drum machine, closes this album, followed by a poor delivery and a functional hook with a bad jazzy bridge performed in what was a track that probably wanted to pay homage to Aretha Franklin, before this a kind of rhythm near the ballad with blatant R&B vibes and bland delivery. "Peanut Butter" reincarnates a bit the general feelings for this record: he has a fantastic sample, ESG's "UFO" — in addition to the usual one, James Brown, here he was sampled on average every track, there's always — but the rhythm it sucks and the delivery proves ridiculously out of place.
Released by their previous producer Gene Griffin's label Sound of New York and Motown, distributed by MCA, the effort is a success in charts (#103 in the Billboard 200, #16 among rnb albums), leaded by the hit "New Jack Swing" produced by new jack swing pioneer Teddy Riley peaks #1 on the Hot rap Tracks, while the other hit "Juicy" is sixth. This is the last album made with B-Doggs, shot and killed on August 1990.
Rating: 3.5/10.
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