Nice & Smooth
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Featured:  Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein |
Nice & Smooth is an East Coast hip hop duo from New York that consists of Greg Nice (Greg Mays) and Smooth B (Daryl Barnes). The duo released four albums from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s. Their first appearance was on the song, "Pimpin Ain't Easy" by Big Daddy Kane on his album, It's a Big Daddy Thing in 1989.
While never gaining large pop appeal, each of the duo’s albums were certified for gold-level sales by the RIAA, with its biggest radio fame coming from "Sometimes I Rhyme Slow...," from its second album, Ain't a Damn Thing Changed, released in 1991. The song was a moderately somber rhyme with introspective lines about poverty, AIDS, and drugs that was set to the guitar loop from Tracy Chapman's hit "Fast Car." In the summer of 1992, the music video received heavy rotation on MTV. "Hip-Hop Junkies," which featured a sample from The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" was also a hit, and it was once performed live on Keenan Ivory Wayans’ comedy/variety TV show, In Living Color. The duo is known for its humorous rhymes and catchy hooks. They often appeared as guest emcees on albums by the Beatnuts, Gang Starr, and Tony Touch among many others.
The duo’s most-noted contribution to hip-hop is its second single, "Funky for You," released in 1990 with the following lyrics:
- Hey, yo, Dizzy Gillespie plays the sax!
- Me myself, I love to max!
- Red-Bone booties, I'm out to wax!
- Stick-up kids is out to tax!
Tupac Shakur intended to sign Nice & Smooth to his Makaveli labelTemplate:Fact and even recorded tracks with the duo for the One Nation album. Trugoy from De La Soul paid homage to Nice & Smooth by using each member's rhyming style in verses on the song “Simply Havin'” from De La Soul's AOI Bionix album. Smooth B wrote rhymes for Bobby Brown that appeared in his debut album King of Stage and second album Don't Be Cruel.
