Del Tha Funkee Homosapien’s second studio album, No Need For Alarm celebrated its twentieth birthday today and in remembrance, the Oakland, California native reflected on the making of the project.
Speaking with Daniel Isenberg of Nah Right, Del spoke on numerous topics including his cousin Ice Cube’s influence on the album’s creation as executive producer.
“He wanted to make sure that the average motherfucker could take my shit in,” Del Tha Funkee Homosapien said when asked about the shift in sound from his first album. “Because my shit was super duper bugged out. Like, crazy. I had this song called ‘Concrete Trampoline’ before it came out. It was basically like, ‘You don’t bounce off it, you dead.’ He was like, ‘That shit ain’t gonna fly. You’re gonna have to talk a little bit different or something.’ [Laughs.] But I’m glad he did that. But for this album, I wanted to separate myself from that and just get on some MC shit.”
Later in the interview, Del talked about his exterior influences during the time the album was made. He says that Kool G Rap was very influential in changing his rapping style from his first album.
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“A Tribe Called Quest was at Jive [back then],” he said. “I actually knew Q-Tip at the time, and Jungle Brothers, too. They were definitely an influence. And De La [Soul] too. But lyrically, I was probably drawing more from Kool G Rap, you know what I’m saying? Some exterminators, on the lyrical tip. The first album was more of my personality, whereas the second album was more technical.”
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien Says “Wrong Place” Was Inspired From A Real Life Experience
“So the third verse was about when I got in trouble coming back from Amsterdam [into the United States], and how I felt about it,” he said when asked about the song. “Me and my boy Kwame, who used to manage me at the time, were coming back from Amsterdam. He had dreadlocks, right? So right off the bat, they strip search us in the airport. So they take my wallet and look at my I.D., and a little crumb of hash comes rolling out. I guess I forgot about it. So they’re like, ‘Aha!’
“So I’m like 21, laughing at them like, ‘Come on, dude. I can’t even smoke that if I wanted to smoke it. You know, dude. Just throw it away.’ So he’s like, ‘You think this is a joking matter? Trafficking drugs is a serious matter.’ So they detained me in the airport, and I couldn’t leave until I paid a $500 fine. Then I had to fly back to go to court. And the judge was pissed off, like, ‘Why are you wasting my time for this fucking bullshit?’ So he gave me probation, and said, ‘If you finish probation and this little drug class, we’ll wipe it off your record.’ But [leading up to my court appearance], it was a big ass deal in my mind, like, ‘I’m gonna go to jail for this little ass crumb [of hash].’”
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No Need For Alarm was released on November 23, 1993 via Elektra Records. It was heavily produced by Hieroglyphics and would be Del Tha Funkee Homosapien’s official departure from his G-Funk influenced first album, I Wish My Brother George Was Here.
Read the full Nah Right feature on Del Tha Funkee Homosapien here.
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