The House Party Bully

So, I mentioned in yesterday's post, that Full Force reprised their characters as the bullies in the first two House Party movies on their latest record. But what I didn't mention is that this isn't actually the first time they did that. Way back in 1990, on UTFO's fifth album, Bag It and Bone It, Bowlegged Lou joins EMD, The Educated Rapper on "If You Don't Wanna Get Pregnant..." But he doesn't join him as himself. Instead he raps in character as Pee Wee, easily the most memorable of the bullies thanks to his unreal, cartoonish voice.

Bag It and Bone It was a weird album for UTFO. Doctor Ice had left the group to pursue his solo career, so EMD takes the front seat here. And, while there are some clean and even positive messagey songs; the bulk of it is dirty to the point of almost mean spiritedness. It's like they decided hip-hop was no longer going to support an old school group like UTFO anymore, so the answer was to become the east coast 2 Live Crew. A group that basically never cursed even in the late 80s. and just talked about sex through winky innuendos suddenly produced an album that could rival Willie D's, with lines like "I'm greedy, I want ALL the punanny; I don't give a damn if it's sister or mommy." Bushwick Bill rapped about killing a girl and having "sex with her corpse before I left her," but I'm not sure The Geto Boys were even prepared to cross the incest line. And back in 1990, this type of stuff was still shocking. Especially since nobody saw it coming from the guys who released "Bad Luck Barry" and "Fairytale Lover."

So, anyway, UTFO was missing Doc Ice, but they were still an official Force Organization. The Force still has co-writing and production credit for the bulk of the album. And, yes, Bowlegged Lou takes the mic to record a proper duet with EMD on this one song. As Pee Wee.

On the album, the song is preceeded by a long-ish skit where EMD says, "I wanna do this with that character you was playin' in that movie." That's followed by EMD and Pee Wee calling in a "bitch" and talk her into sucking their dicks. Because that's the unwritten second half of the song title... "If you don't wanna get pregnant, suck the dick." It ends with sound effects, like that Biggie skit, except with the added bonus of Pee Wee getting off in his crazy high-pitched voice.

Then the song starts and the production consists of an actually really funky loop with tight, jazzy horns. The raps (and yes, Pee Wee has full rap verses; he's not just here as a background character) are angry and x-rated (really, just call up that crazy Pee Wee voice in your head aa you read the following lines, "you mean to say my dick's hard for nothin'? Well, spread your butt cheeks 'cause I'm fuckin' somethin'!"), but the music is surprisingly upbeat and cheerful. There's an amusing breakdown where the girl voice sings "I'm sucking it baby" to the tune of LL's "Jingling Baby."

Surprisingly, they released this as a single. I mean, instrumentally I could see it warranting it a single, but there's no way this song could play on any radio or TV station. Amazingly, there is a Clean Version on here, but it's useless. There's not a five second span of this song that isn't curse-filled and x-rated.

The b-side is the album track "Hoein' for the Dough." In contrast to the A-side, this is a slow, calm song, with EMD's flow sounding downright Southern. It's got a really funky bassline, though, and some nice, underplayed scratches by Mixmaster Ice. Lyrically, well, the title tells the whole story; but EMD does manage to breathe some extra life into it with colorful details and an extra smooth delivery.

And this 12" has an exclusive, too: a Slammin' Remix of "If You Don't Wanna Get Pregnant..." It completely replaces the original instrumental elements with a hype and very 80's track. Interestingly, they cut out the part of the girl singing "I'm sucking it, baby" but replace it with Ice scratching in LL's line, "go 'head, baby." You'd never get the reference if you weren't intimately familiar with the album version, but there it is. It's a pretty dope mix, though the original has the advantage of sounding more original, whereas this sounds like multiple songs we've heard before. But it's all kind of wasted, anyway, since x-rated Pee Wee basically turns the whole thing into a novelty track.

As such, even though there's clearly a lot of talent evident, it's hard to actually recommend this single to anyone beyond a quick, "can you believe this exists?" listen. I guess that's why it's one of the most common bargain bin fillers in the genre ...not to mention the end of UTFO's recording career. But curiosity seekers ought to know that this dark side to the House Party soundtrack is out there in the world. And I wonder how close Jive Records was to asking Lou if they could just sign Pee Wee to a solo deal.