Strictly Business

1	Strictly Business / EPMD 4:47
2	I'm Housin' / EPMD 4:01
3	Let the Funk Flow / EPMD 4:16
4	You Gots to Chill / EPMD 4:26
5	It's My Thang / EPMD 5:45
6	You're a Customer / EPMD 5:28
7	The Steve Martin / EPMD 4:44
8	Get off the Bandwagon / EPMD 4:25
9	D.J. K la Boss / EPMD 4:31
10	Jane / EPMD 2:59

Barnes & Noble

"This ain't a blast from the past it's a boomer from the future," Erick Sermon raps on STRICTLY BUSINESS, one of the greatest hip-hop records of all time. Arriving just as the luster was beginning to fade from hip-hop's b-boy dominated, golden era in the mid '80s, Sermon and Parrish Smith changed the movement's course forever. EPMD ("Erick and Parrish Makin' Dollars") confronted bombastic machismo with dry sounding, yet fluid, metrically baroque rhymes that challenged MCs to sharpen their tongues and revamp their lyrics. Rooted in deep, bassy funk, their 1988 debut opened with body rockin' tracks like "Strictly Business," "I'm Housin'," and "Let the Funk Flow," and went on to finessed soul on "It's My Thing" and "You're A Customer." Jon Dolan

All Music Guide

EPMD's blueprint for East Coast rap wasn't startlingly different from many others in rap's golden age, but the results were simply amazing, a killer blend of good groove and laid-back flow, plus a populist sense of sampling that had heads nodding from the first listen (and revealed tastes that, like Prince Paul's, tended toward AOR as much as classic soul and funk). A pair from Long Island, EPMD weren't real-life hardcore rappers -- it's hard to believe the same voice who talks of spraying a crowd on one track could be name-checking the Hardy Boys later on -- but their no-nonsense, monotoned delivery brooked no arguments. With their album debut, Strictly Business, Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith really turned rapping on its head; instead of simple lyrics delivered with a hyped, theatrical tone, they dropped the dopest rhymes as though they spoke them all the time. Their debut single, "You Gots to Chill," was a perfect example of the EPMD revolution; two obvious samples, Zapp's "More Bounce to the Ounce" and Kool & the Gang's "Jungle Boogie," doing battle over a high-rolling beat, with the fluid, collaborative raps of Sermon and Smith tying everything together with a mastery that made it all seem deceptively simple. There was really only one theme at work here -- the brilliancy of EPMD, or the worthlessness of sucker MCs -- but every note of Strictly Business proved their claims. John Bush