Track #24 - “It Takes Two” by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock (1988)

From the album It Takes Two

Music and lyrics by James Brown and Robert Ginyard

Performed by:

Rob Base (Robert Ginyard) – lead vocals

DJ E-Z Rock (Rodney “Skip” Bryce) – samples, turntables

US Billboard Hot 100 - #36; US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs - #17

US Billboard Dance Club Songs - #3

2021 – Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs of All Time - #116

I wanna rock right now

I’m Rob Base and I came to get down

I’m not internationally known

But I’m known to rock the microphone

Because I get stupid, I mean outrageous

Stay away from me, if you’re contagious

‘Cause I’m the winner, no, not a loser

To be an MC is what I choose-a

Ladies love me, girls adore me

I mean even the ones who never saw me

Like the way that I rhyme at a show

The reason why, man, I don’t know

So let’s go, ‘cause

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I don’t remember hearing about diversity and the importance of it the way we hear about it today. I saw diversity, to a point, in the people of different races, colors and religions all around me on the Brooklyn streets as I walked to school or to the store with my parents or played with friends. But if I’m being honest, and if I’m remembering correctly, I would hardly call the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in diverse; the Catholic school I attended was even less so. You would think living in one of the five boroughs in one of the biggest cities in the US that I would have gone to school with more Black, Asian, and Hispanic kids, but for whatever reason, it was less than you might expect. And when my family moved to Long Island, well let’s just put it out there…my worldview got whiter. I don’t think my parents planned it that way. They were just looking for the best schools for my brother and I to attend, and wide(r) open spaces for us to grow up in. The suburbs were just not as diverse back then as they are now, and some of you would argue that even more suburban diversity is probably needed. My first real experience with being in a truly diverse environment was working for the non-profit organization I mentioned a few posts ago. I was in my early 20s when I worked there, and I’m forever grateful for the experience of being able to work with people of all different races, colors, religions, and sexual orientations; it radically changed my worldview. When it comes to music, let’s just say I had the best influences and the foundation to become a bigger fan of R&B and hip-hop artists and didn’t make the best of it. My mother was a huge listener of Motown artists and 70s R&B, and I’ve mentioned how I used to watch Soul Train with her on Saturday afternoons; we’ll talk much more about this down the road. I loved watching Soul Train. I loved watching the performers, who usually lip-synced their current hit, and the legendary Soul Train line dances that made it look like a party every week. Host Don Cornelius was like no one I had ever seen or heard, with his leisure suits, bright ties, and crooner’s voice, introducing and talking to the artists. Obviously, disco was everywhere in the late 70s; the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was often on our turntable on those lazy Saturdays, and my mom owned a fair amount of K-Tel disco compilations and Donna Summer albums. It was all right there every Saturday: Stevie Wonder, The Commodores, The Spinners, Earth, Wind & Fire, to name a few. Then in 1979, I heard my first rap song, “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang, on NYC radio station WKTU. In fact, depending on who you talk to, it was the first rap song ever. Way more on “Rapper’s Delight” to come, but I had one of those “What is THIS??” moments when I first heard it. Then we moved to Long Island in 1980, and I quickly realized no one knew what “Rapper’s Delight” was. In fact, the kids down the block looked at me like I was nuts when I mentioned it. (PS – one of those kids had an edited 45-single version of “Rapper’s Delight” in his collection by that summer, so I had the last laugh.) And forget about it being on the radio; I remember a lot of stadium rock and wimpy adult pop on those Long Island radio stations back then. Looking back, I think it took awhile for rap and hip-hop to make their way to the Long Island suburbs. In the end, the influence of my dad listening to that great rock and roll back then, and the discovery of album rock being played on radio station WBAB had more of an impact on me than Soul Train and “Rapper’s Delight” did. So, I listened to Billy Joel, discovered Hall & Oates, stadium rockers Styx and Loverboy, The Cars and Genesis and U2, and all that amazing heavy rock of the early 80s, and then metal as I navigated high school. Rap and hip-hop were just never on my radar. But, in June of 1988, just as high school was about to end forever for me and the rest of the seniors at Sachem High School, that all changed when hip-hop was literally thrown in my car’s tape deck.

Rob Base was born Robert Ginyard, in Harlem in 1967. He met Rodney “Skip” Bryce, later known as DJ E-Z Rock while attending grade school. They performed together as part of the Sureshot Seven until most of the group disbanded in high school, leaving the pair to begin writing and performing songs on their own. They were soon signed by the Profile record label in 1987. That same year, while looking through crates of records at a friend’s house, the pair stumbled on a 1972 track called “Think (About It)” by the R&B singer Lyn Collins, a song written and produced by soul legend James Brown. After listening to the track multiple times, they felt they could build a song specifically around the sample and Collins’ vocal lines, “It takes two to make a thing go right/It takes two to make it outta sight.” With Base’s lyrics already written, E-Z Rock built a hook by sampling the bass riff around those two vocal lines, accentuating it, and bringing it to the forefront like a lead instrument, and keeping the “Woo! Yeah!” on a continuous loop throughout the track. They even sampled Collins’ own voice on what became the chorus, the “It takes two…” lyrics. The result was “It Takes Two”, released in June 1988. The duo’s debut album of the same name wouldn’t be released until that August, but the single became an instant underground hit, and a dance club staple, despite little radio airplay. It never reached higher than #36 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it would be certified platinum for 1,000,000 units sold, and be named Single of the Year by Spin magazine that year. If you’ve ever been to a club, wedding, bar or even a sporting event in the last 35 years, I can almost guarantee you have heard “It Takes Two.” In fact, I bet you have danced hard to this song if it ever came on at said club or wedding. It’s hard not to; it’s infectious, bold, upbeat and most people sing along with Rob Base’s self-promoting lyrics even if they don’t completely know the words – more on that later. But the first time I heard it, I was not at a wedding or a club. I was in my Nissan Sentra in my high school parking lot in the waning days of my senior year. I was about to make an AM trip to McDonald’s during my free period with a couple of friends when a kid I barely knew, a friend of a friend, just jumped in the front seat of my car, and slammed a cassette in my tape deck. In that moment, a Black kid in my very un-diverse high school, gave me a lesson in hip-hop.

 To say I was friends with the kid who jumped in my car that day would be a stretch, but of course I knew who he was. Darren, my best friend at the time, was much friendlier with him, and he probably just figured "Why not jump in John’s car with Darren and everyone else?” By the way, I reached out to my hip-hop purveyor on social media to talk to him about that day, but we just couldn’t get it together to connect, so I won’t use his real name; we’ll just call him DJ. DJ had an outsized personality back then, and I have no doubt he still does. In fact, DJ is a successful disc jockey here in the northeast and has a decent social media following. DJ started accompanying me, Darren and whoever else was around during our early morning free period. We’d go over to McDonald’s or the local deli and consume egg sandwiches, cartons of Quik, soda and candy bars and go back to school sky-high on sugar and caffeine. Obviously not the best food choices, but we would do anything to avoid being in the school building an extra minute; we were seniors after all. DJ would usually be waiting in the parking lot as we made our way outside, big smile on his face, and greet us with, “What’s up guys?” I have to be honest here: at first, I thought it was annoying, this guy I barely knew just jumping in my car almost every day. He may have even known I was annoyed, and now looking back, of course I feel bad. But eventually I shrugged and just went with it. On this particular day, I was already in the car, waiting for Darren and presumably DJ, and whoever else was joining us. Suddenly, both passenger side doors open, and DJ parked himself in my front seat, and Darren jumped in the back, something he normally never did. I think our friend Tim, who was a junior, was also there that day, but I can’t be certain. Before I even made it out of the parking lot, DJ pulled a cassette from his pocket, and without asking, simply put it in the tape deck, made sure the equalizer was powered up, and turned up the volume. There was a weird distorted musical intro, followed by a synthesized voice declaring, “Right about now, you are about to be possessed, by the sounds of MC Rob Base, and DJ E-Z Rock!”, and then… “HIT IT!” Well, the bass kicked in so loud the car shook, and I could feel the speaker near my leg on the door vibrating and shaking so much I thought it might blow up right there in the car. Then I heard a female voice begin a refrain of “Woo! Yeah!”, that would loop through the whole track. It was then that DJ began clapping and singing along with every “Woo! Yeah!”, ignoring the rest of us, and completely in his own world. The rap began, “I wanna rock right now, I’m Rob Base and I came to get down…”, and DJ just kept clapping, and honestly, he was probably singing every word, but I didn’t notice. All I could get my head around was here I was, driving through Ronkonkoma, the music so loud, the bass shaking the car…and it was hip-hop music, no less! These were local streets we were on…people must have heard us coming before we drove into sight. What’s that expression? My car was bumping, kids. Plus…we were three white boys, and one Black kid playing this music; was this even allowed? Was it OK for rap music to be playing in my car? But, about a minute or two into it, I started to like it. I didn’t want to like it, but I couldn’t help myself. The sound was full, and not like the metal and rock I was used to. The snare hits slammed, and the bass beats were at the forefront of the music instead of in the background. I couldn’t understand many of the lyrics since it sounded like they were trying to get as many words as they could into each verse, but I could tell there was a confident sassiness to whatever this guy was singing about. We pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot and DJ made us wait until the song was completely over before we got out. He seemed so happy with himself, smiling the whole ride, as he was clapping and “Woo-Yeah”-ing. But he didn’t ask us what we thought of that song that he clearly loved; he just ejected his cassette, put it in his pocket and went into McDonald’s with us. We didn’t play it on the way back to school either. And once again, what would end up becoming an iconic rap song fell off my radar. I did not hear “It Takes Two” again until the summer of 1989, almost a full year later, while riding in my friend Don’s jeep, the same jeep where I first heard “Buffalo Stance” by Neneh Cherry. I also discovered Long Island rap trio De La Soul and their amazing album Three Feet High and Rising that summer, and then Don played his copy of the It Takes Two album, and I finally got to hear the title track again. I must have said something like, “Oh man, I forgot about this song,” because Don said it was literally everywhere during his senior year (Don was a year younger). Sure enough, we continued to hear it that summer: at the beach, down at Port Jefferson where we hung out sometimes, and on the radio. But it wasn’t until I turned 21 and started going out to clubs and bars that I began to hear it literally everywhere I went. It was one of those songs that made everyone get on dance floors everywhere; like I said before, if you’ve been out of the house in the last 35 years, you have heard it, and hopefully danced to it. But I will never forget the first time I heard it, in my old red Nissan Sentra that day in June, and DJ clapping and singing while it played. I really hope I get the chance to talk to him about that day, and that amazing track he played for us. Maybe it’s had the same impact on him all these years later. And of course, I’d ask him if he still plays it at his gigs now! I’m sure he does…that song is guaranteed to fill whatever dance floor he’s playing at.

And here’s the video for “It Takes Two.” Rob Base and E-Z Rock literally just grabbed their friends and shot it on the street outside a record store in Harlem; it’s beautiful, low-budget 80s MTV kitsch at its best…enjoy! 😊

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Next time…one of the greatest songwriters from one of the most iconic rock bands of all-time has a solo hit on one of my K-Tel hit collections, and I almost skip right over it.

P.S.

 The album It Takes Two produced two more hit songs: “Get on the Dance Floor” and “Joy & Pain”, the latter also being a dance club crowd pleaser back in the day. Rob Base ended up recording a solo album in 1989, The Incredible Base. No real explanation was ever given for DJ E-Z Rock’s absence, and the album produced no hit singles, and did not resonate nearly as much as It Takes Two. The pair would reunite for 1994’s Break of Dawn, but once again, the album underperformed, and eventually Ginyard and Bryce went their separate ways. Rob Base continued to perform in the 2010’s; in 2014, DJ E-Z Rock died at the age of 46 of a diabetic seizure. Rob Base still performs and tours today. In fact, when I did a Google search, his booking agency came up immediately, as did several links to buy tickets for an upcoming 2023 summer tour, so it looks like he remains busy. “It Takes Two” is still regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop tracks ever, and has been sampled by Snoop Dogg and The Black Eyed Peas, among others. It’s also on several “Greatest of All-Time” lists, including Rolling Stone’s 2021 list of the Top 500 Songs of All Time, where it placed at #116. And if you’re curious about the song Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock sampled to write their iconic track, “Think (About It)”, you can find it here on YouTube. The bass riff they sample comes in at 1:28 of the song, so listen carefully!

It would be unfair to say that I’m a huge fan of rap and hip-hop fan, but I realize the impact and cultural significance of the music. I just don’t listen to enough current artists to qualify as a real fan. But I do love the rap and hip-hop music that came from the 80s-90s era, probably because I heard it so much when I was out, and if I was watching MTV, which was often. Plus, those songs were so much fun to sing along with and dance to. Besides the entire Beasties Boys catalog, there are only two other hip-hop records I have sought to own: the aforementioned Three Feet High and Rising by De La Soul, and Lauryn Hill’s towering album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Both albums are still among my favorite records ever, and I still listen to each. I listened to Straight Outta Compton by NWA when it first came out in 1989, and it blew me away when I first heard it, and still does if I queue it up today. When I met my friend Todd back in 1991 and he showed me his crates of records and CD’s, I sampled all the rap and hip-hop he had, and he showed me how to mix tracks on a turntable, and we made several mixtapes of artists from the 80s and 90s. Unfortunately, those mixtapes are gone, but I’d probably have a hard time playing them now anyway; I can’t remember the last time I owned a cassette player. When I met my wife, I learned she was also a big fan of 90s rap, and she turned me onto A Tribe Called Quest, and when she had me listen to Notorious B.I.G, I realized I had been missing out. I still look for playlists with 80s and 90s hip-hop artists and I listen to all the 70s classic R&B I can get my hands on. It all reminds me of simpler times, and of family and lazy Saturdays in Brooklyn and backyards parties when I was in my 20s. Rap and hip-hop now dominate the charts and streaming services, and in my opinion, it’s about time. This music literally started on the streets, and it’s risen to be what grunge was to my generation, except it’s found a way to stick around longer. There are artists that regularly debut at #1 when they release new music, like Drake, and Lil Nas X and Jay-Z, but I don’t give these artists the time to listen the way I do when other artists put out new music, and that is my fault for not being more open minded. If “It Takes Two” came out now, would it have had the same impact on me that it had back in 1988? I’m really not sure. But I do love it, and I’ll probably continue to dance to it like no one is watching me; if you happen to witness that, please don’t judge. 😊

I mentioned earlier how most people can sing all the words to “It Takes Two” as they’re tearing up the dance floor. One lyric that people, including me, often get wrong is the “Don’t smoke buddha, can’t stand sess” line. For years I thought, along with most people, that Base was saying “…can’t stand sex…”, but he’s not. “Sess” is slang for sinsemilla, a potent form of marijuana that does not develop seeds but can still be consumed. “Buddha” is also a strain of marijuana, so Base is saying that he says “No” when it comes to smoking pot…or at least he felt that way back in 1988. Not sure of his propensities now. So, for years I was singing it wrong. I never could figure out why he was telling the world he couldn’t stand sex, so this actually makes more sense.

Hopefully my efforts to connect with DJ after all these years end up being successful. I really want to hear his perspective on that day in June 1988 when he took over my car stereo and played “It Takes Two”, and how he came by the cassette, and his own relationship with the song over the years. More importantly, I want to hear his views on how rap and hip-hop have evolved over four decades to become the ubiquitous genre of music it is now. When I do finally have the opportunity to speak with DJ you’ll be the first to know. And I hope he’ll make a playlist for us because I’m holding off making one for now. Besides, there’s one more rap song that we still need to discuss. 😊

See you next time…

JS

4/29/2023