Son of Eve

The unfortunate thing about Son of Eve is that most of the activity surrounding their career happened before the Staten Island hip-hop crew released their one and only full-length disc for A&M imprint Dv8 Records. Musicians/MC's Finster Baby Jones and Gus both grew up in Brooklyn and Staten Island New York and both worked in bands and other musical projects separately without much success. But when the two began exchanging musical ideas and working their demos in the local underground hip-hop scene during the late '80s, things began to take shape for the talented poets. By 1991, a serious buzz was building around the duo as they performed at all the right clubs and got to know all the right people in New York's vibrant music circles. After Mickey Marchello of the Good Rats caught a Son of Eve performance at a nightclub in Long Island, he got Jones and Gus in touch with David Sonenberg, and the duo were well on their way. Sonenberg negotiated a contract with Dv8, and Son of Eve finally had a major label deal and with it the means to create the music they had been imagining together for years. This overnight sensation still needed to take a bit of time to develop in their new situation, so it wasn't until 1998 that Son of Eve finally got to release their national debut, Dollar Shots. This self-produced disc shows off Son of Eve in all their dynamic exuberance, and brilliance. The beats are strong and Jones and Gus display a pleasant flow that relies on attitude and cleverness more than histrionics and posturing. The relatively sparse use of samples is well done just as the musical performances (by the group, not studio players) is more than respectable. Son of Eve were blessed with an easy-going positive nature that is evident throughout Dollar Shots, but the street still lives inside of them, and it's easy to notice that while they aren't overly concerned with a hard self-portrayal, their eyes are open, and they know how to deal with a reality that might not always present them with sunshine and happiness. These guys are as hard as they need to be, which is exactly how hard everyone really should be anyway. There have not been any full-length offerings from the group since Dollar Shots, which must be due in part to the corporate shuffling and resulting roster cuts at Polygram when it was absorbed into Universal shortly after the now-defunct A&M released the Son of Eve debut. This specific sad ending is the unfortunate finish to many stories of fine young Polygram artists of the time: once promising upstarts transformed almost instantly into damaged goods, tainted by circumstances which they had no control over.