Resident Alien - It Takes A Nation Of Suckas To Let Us In

For the unaware, Prince Paul briefly had a production deal with Def Jam in 1990 which got him his own imprint named, of all things, Dew Doo Man. Yeah, I know, typical Prince Paul.

According to Stacy Gueraseva's book, "Def Jam, Inc.", Paul was 20 years old at the time and, as a member of Stetsasonic, had already signed with Rush Management, Def Jam's in-house management team which handled most of the big name rappers of that era. He had just produced De La Soul's debut, "3 Feet High and Rising", among other things, and Russell Simmons and Lyor Cohen thought he was the next big thing. They offered him his own imprint, but Paul turned down the offer several times. It took Cohen offering him $50,000 to make Paul sign on the line. As part of the deal, Paul would record demos for potential acts and present them to Russell and Lyor for their approval. The first such act, and the only one that went anywhere, was Resident Alien, three of Paul's friends from his neighborhood who were in fact green card carrying resident aliens. Around Def Jam's offcies, the group was not known for rhyming. Again, typical Prince Paul.

Resident Alien went on to record their debut, "It Takes A Nation Of Suckas To Let Us In", whereupon they did rhyme. That's not to say they were fantastic rappers, but they certainly weren't bad. They also sang and did some decent raggae toasting. A 12" for the song "Mr. Boops" was released with the tracks "Shakey Ground" and "Ooh The Dew Doo Man" on the B-side. It got some good hype and fit nicely alongside De La and Black Sheep's debuts, albeit maybe a little sillier. Shortly thereafter, a few reviews for the actual album showed up and they were all quite positive. All in all, everything looked like it Resident Alien was going to blow up quite nicely, but that was where it all stopped and nothing else RA related was heard for a long time. Apparently, Russell Simmons had not been enthused with the album and decided to cancel its release. Maybe it was Paul's lighthearted jabs at Simmons and Def Jam's artists, but regardless it put the kibosh on the album ever seeing release. Well, for the most part...

Apart from the 12" previously mentioned, Paul placed "Shakey Ground" and a previously unreleased track, "Alone", his "Hip-Hop Gold Dust" compilation, but as I don't recall there being any mention of permission having been granted from Def Jam, I'm assuming this was done discreetly. Lucky for us, someone along the way leaked the album online from what sounds like a cd circa 1991, with bad track seperation gaps and start points. So, for your listening pleasure, I present an album which sounds like the point directly between De La Soul's 3 Feet and Dead, Resident Alien's "It Takes A Nation Of Suckas To Let Us In".

Resident Alien - It Takes A Nation Of Suckas To Let Us In

01 Intro
02 The Resident Alien
03 I Yam What I Yam
04 The Ox Tail, The Burger & Chicken Wing
05 Miss Lee
06 Shakey Ground (feat. Maceo and Dres)
07 Ardicle Don
08 Horrorscope
09 Midtro
10 Ooh the Dew Doo Man
11 Mr. Boops
12 Alone
13 State of Emergency
14 Are You Ready
15 We Na Play
16 Wanna Be (Russell)
17 Mother's Day
18 Third World
19 Extro
20 Welcome to America