Ruthless Rap Assassins – And It Wasn’t a Dream
label: Syncopate
year: 1990
side a:
side b:
One of those bands I heard once and didn’t really like them, and now I do, twenty years late and all their records hard to find. I was intrigued by their name when wandering through the Amsterdam city centre one day. I nearly walked into a lamp post on the Leidseplein because I was looking at the ground. I looked up and saw the lamp post inches away and it had a sticker on it. “Th!nk, it ain’t illegal yet”, it said. Signed: Ruthless Rap Assassins.
British rap wasn’t very big in The Netherlands in those days. I knew London Posse and Derek B and that was about it. As with virtually everything, the Dutch look at the United States first, and so all of the hip-hop we were hearing was American or dodgy Dutch imitations with fet exunts and lyrics about ghetto life in Woensel or Osdorp. Although Osdorp Posse were actually pretty good because they were taking the piss with their literal translations of American slang words (or were they?), and their lyrics were kind of poetic in a twisted way.
So when I saw the sticker I went to a record store and asked for the Th!nk, It Ain’t Illegal Yet album but when I listened to it I didn’t like it. It wasn’t until years later that I started to appreciate. By then I couldn’t find their records anymore, the only one I stumbled upon in all those years is this here single, taken from that same second album. Fun fact 1: they sampled the wonderful “The Message” by Cymande for the A-side. I love Cymande. Fun fact 2: one of the three Ruthless Rap Assassins, MC Kermit La Freak (friends just call him Kermit) went on to form Black Grape, alongside Shaun Ryder and is now in Big Dog, ie if they’re still around.
I’m going on Discogs now and pay shitloads of money for second hand VG+ copies of the RRA vinyls like the silly bunt that I am.
Video of “And It Wasn’t a Dream”.