The summer before I turned eleven, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince were everything.

For a kid like me in Chicago with baby boomer parents that thought all hip-hop and rap was dirtier than a Richard Pryor album, it was a relief to find a parent approved, clean cut, hip-hop duo that they found to be G-Rated at that time. DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince were all of that and then some; in contrast to their peers Kid N’ Play they were as cookie cutter and innocent as you could find in commercial hip-hop.

That’s right, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince were indeed one of the first commercial hip-hop groups that made it.

In retrospect the duo had such a wide crossover appeal  in part to their unique caveat of The Fresh Prince’s jovial goof ball persona and lack of cursing in his lyrics. This unusual non-militant hip-hop combination made him instantly likeable to parents while is signature song content was aimed directly at my generation who were on the cusp of being tweens. No adult has ever batted an eye with the 80s kids rapping every lyric to their titular hit Parents Just Don’t Understand line for line though the subject matter is a direct diss to them. No hip-hop group, before or sense, has ever been parental approved.

As a result both parents and their children alike were down for their having fun party type of hip-hop vibe. Spurned by Parents Just Don’t Understand and it’s weird crazy video, their sophomore album He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper got them serious radio play and made them the first hip-hop Philly group on the map. Their battle song A Nightmare On My Street also gained them popularity, especially with the pending lawsuit from New Line Cinema since the song, contrary to popular opinion, was not on the soundtrack to A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master soundtrack. Hip-hop fans loved the duo from Philadelphia, primarily for their catchy beats and their participation in a highly publicized boycott of the Grammy’s for not supporting Black hip-hop artists and awarding Vanilla Ice the first rap song Grammy award.

In other words, they had a lot of respect on their names in the cypher.

Summer of 1991 was a special time of hip hop life; there was never a more embraced joint that spoke to everybody like Summertime. The record was huge. A movement. An explosion. It didn’t matter if Homebase didn’t have any other hits or songs anybody liked, Summertime had already made it a critical and commercial success before you could even get your hands on the vinyl or cassette tape. Every car was blasting it on repeat nonstop until the album dropped that July. Unfortunately this achievement for them would be bittersweet for them as Homebase would be the peak of their group success and leave them on the cusp of splitting into two different artistic directions that would leave Jeff Townes producing behind the scenes and DJing to moderate fanfare and Will Smith an international acting sensation.

Now let’s get down and explore Homebase.

On the precipice of gangster rap at the time it is a wonder that the album was so well received and not the subject of brutal disses. This is a fun feel good album. A party album to the fifth power filled with stories about The Fresh Prince looking fly, being smooth, chasing honeys, and having fun at barbeques and block parties when he isn’t playing ball, dancing on the floor, and looking fly with his DJ by his side to get him through. For 1991 Homebase was the cutting edge of DJ Jazzy Jeff’s production. From a commercial perspective the sound flirted on the verge of defining the sound of more modern hip-hop that was more dance driven and shying away from being sampled laden and, albeit with a keyboard and beat machine, more production composition songs

Gangster rap, unfortunately, stole the sails out of that movement.

Having not listened to Homebase in its entirety since I was eleven I can definitely say for the record that while it’s filled with smooth samples from well known R&B songs (both clipped and composed) that are the sound for the time, it hasn’t aged well with few exceptions. Summertime and its reprise with its golden Kool and the Gang sample have aged like fine wine and still go hard in the appropriate season. The Rick James infused I’m All That still bumps in the trunk. Who Stole The DJ is still a mess and a half of comedy, satire, and a great detective sample that makes it funny to this day.

The other hits on the album, That Thing That U Do and the terrible re-imaging of Ring My Bell sound dated, tired, and played out. Caught In The Middle (Love and Life) sounds like it should have been on the Boomerang soundtrack, which despite it’s catchy hook just falls short of the mark of being memorable. Subsequent remaining songs on the album like This Boy Is Smooth, A Dog Is A Dog, Trapped On The Dance Floor, You Saw My Blinker, and Dumb Dancin’ sound like a spectrum hybrid of New Jack Swing hip hop beats with very Casio keyboard filled tracks that are indicative of the time period and can be easily skipped outside of nostalgia.

Twenty-three years later, Homebase can hold its own solely from sitting on the shoulders of it’s biggest hit Homebase, and take a seat at the head of the table of an era of hip-hop that was really all about having fun, chasing girls and guys, and getting your dance on. It also is a moment in time where Will Smith could do no wrong on the mic, before he abandoned his partner and gave us one too many solo albums that proved how corny he was without Jeff Townes to reel him in and give him direction.

For me, it’s an album of my youth that spoke to a great summer.

“Exploring The Homebase of DJ Jazzy Jeff And The Fresh Prince” an article by Tia Ja’nae from ARTICULATE MADNESS. Images are in the public domain and researched by by ART | library deco editorial staff. Album Provided by YouTube.com @ Iri Fisher.