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Naughty By Nature
offical website
articles/contests
"When we went to see what was going on we found out that L.A. Reid had dropped us from the label. This was after Clive Davis got ousted. We pretty much new that Artista was going to become LaFace Records. I understand business and that we may have gotten dropped, but my whole thing was like, 'Damn, if you gonna do it, you can at least call a homey!'"
"I remember in ’99 when we went overseas and the West Coast stuff was really hot. We were in Germany and cats were there with blue and red rags wrapped around their heads and wrapped around their arms. They really knew nothing about the American gang culture; they were just feeding off what they saw in videos and heard in the music."
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5.23.02
Isn't It Iconic? Naughty By Nature Returns
by Damani
Anyone who listened to the radio, watched music videos, or stepped foot in a club in the early nineties knows Naughty By Nature. The trio catapulted onto the music scene in 1991 with one of the most well-known hip hop singles of all time. By mixing sexuality with a catchy call and response hook, NBN's “O.P.P.” merged hip hop’s gritty street element with a pop sound in an unprecedented way. The key to the outfit's success was three-fold: Kay Gee, the group's producer, had an undeniable knack for cleverly extracting melodies from soul classics and reworking them into feel good tracks for a new generation; Treach, the lead rapper, delivered tongue-twisted linguistics with a memorable charisma; and his co-star, Vinnie, served as hype man and crowd worker. It was a formula that spelled continued success, as Naughty By Nature released hit singles, topping the charts with songs like “Written On Your Kitten,” “Hip Hop Hooray,” and “Feel Me Flow.” In 1995, the East Orange, New Jersey, crew won a Grammy for the album Poverty’s Paradise. By the time their fourth album (Nature’s Fury) was completed in 1999, NBN's Treach, Vinnie, and Kay Gee had been awarded two platinum and two gold albums, in addition to receiving an American Music Award and a Source Award for New Artist of the Year.
Touring the globe as international superstars and maintaining longevity in a genre that is littered with short careers hasn’t been easy. One thing that always seemed certain was the inseparable nature of the trio. That changed suddenly during the recording of the group's most recent album. One listen to NBN's newest effort, IIcons, reveals a noticeable change. Longtime producer Kay Gee is no where to be found. Musictoday recently spoke by phone with Naughty By Nature's Treach and Vinnie about the production situation, the new album, hip hop in Africa, and lots more.
Treach: There is whole new production team on this album. As you know, our other member jumped ship.
Musictoday: Was Kay Gee’s departure a friendly one or was it filled with animosity?
Treach: It was very ugly. We heard through the press that the homey quit. That was the ultimate disrespect right there…not to mention the things he did before he left the group. He got shiesty with it.
Mt: Did you call him up?
Treach: When I heard it, I didn't think it was real. He was out producing his other groups, and we figured if something happened, he would call. Someone else came to us and told us that we really needed to call him. I figured, if it was true, then we didn’t really have nothing to say to each other. Homey got us dropped off of Arista to lace his own label deal. Had we (Naughty By Nature) gotten a deal first, it would have taken money from his label deal. So, we went to go see what the stall was on our deal, because I only want to wait a little while before I hit the streets. When we went to see what was going on, we found out that L.A. Reid had dropped us from the label. This was after Clive Davis got ousted. We pretty much new that Artista was going to become LaFace Records. I understand business and that we may have gotten dropped, but my whole thing was like, “Damn, if you gonna do it, you can at least call a homey!” So we went out to L.A. and recorded six new songs, but they wasn’t feeling what we were doing right now. After that, L.A. Reid said that Naughty By Nature was all about the production and he was like, we didn’t have any talent outside the production. He was acting like all the hooks for the songs were written by the beats, and all the rhymes were written by the beats.
Mt: How long after that incident were you able to be picked up by another label?
Vinnie: They dropped us in September and we were back on board with TVT in December. It was a little over a year.
Mt: How did you go about getting producers for the new album?
Treach: Street corner style. Our tracks come with it, no matter who made it. We got homeys coming up to us everyday handing us demos, so we just took them home. Vinnie was the mastermind behind all that. He chose the tracks and I heard a couple of tracks that I liked, too.
Vinnie: It was a combination between cats that walked up to us on the streets and relationships we already had with producers like the Beatminerz and plus, Brian Leach—our A&R at the label—had a few cats on deck, too. We weren’t necessarily going after the big name producers that charge $150,000 a track.
top of page page 2 of interview
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