Friday 30 December 2011

Redhead Kingpin & The FBI 'Do The Right Thing'

Chart Peak: 13

YouTube

American rapper Redhead Kingpin reached No. 13 in August 1989 with this track.

Anyone else get the impression they were losing interest at this point in the sleeve notes? No mention of the fact that Redhead Kingpin's real name is David Guppy (no relation to Darius Guppy of fraud fame, so far as I can tell) or to the fact that his mother was apparently a police officer. At least the picture of the band makes it pretty obvious where he got the stage name from.

I have to admit I don't remember this at all from the time, but at least that saves me from getting it mixed up with the similarly-titled Simply Red hit. It's somewhere on the border between rap and that New Jack Swing sound we heard earlier on this album from Bobby Brown, though there's more charm on offer here, and a positive message amid the over-familiar samples. He does sound a bit like he's filling when he starts listing various districts of New York in which people should be doing the right thing, and the record's probably about a minute too long but it's rather enjoyable all the same.

Available on: Pure Dance Party

1 comment:

  1. He was popular when I was a teen pop rap/new jack swing. His a producer now

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