Oliver! appendix: Krispy 3 [Peel Session] (7 December 1991)

Long time readers of this blog may remember that I often cited the Peel Session recorded by Chorley hip hop trio, Krispy 3 for broadcast in his Radio 1 show on 7 December 1991 as one of my Holy Grails given how much I loved it on first hearing and its apparent unavailability.  Whenever a previously missing track from 7/12/91 turned up, I would include it as an appendix here, but never lost an opportunity to reference that Krispy 3 session, almost as a way of saying, “Yes, New Mind were great, but if you had heard Krispy 3’s Peel Session, then you would truly be in the presence of greatness.”

Well, my benefactor and champion, Webbie has kindly uploaded a recording of the session from that show together with Peel’s links.  It’s a wonderful capsule which showcases just how entertaining and fun, Krispy 3 were.  Peel had been an enthusiastic supporter of them through late 1991, and they first came to my attention through their excellent single, Don’t Be Misled. Which made it all the more surprising that I’ve heard nothing from them in any of Peel’s 1992 shows, although he may have played some tracks from their debut album which was released just as The Comedy of Errors was finishing and I was about to go on a short acting hiatus which meant that Peel’s shows and tracklistings for the period July-September 1992 fell outside this blog’s remit.  All is not lost given that they continued to record music up to 1999, so hopefully more music from them will turn up through the years.

Krispy 3’s particular genius was the way in which they used seemingly mundane or unglamorous scenarios as cover for more serious topics.  Second track, Where We Going? starts out with the crew pondering the problems of getting lost while going camping in the countryside - a notion since reclaimed in recent years by the black community in the rush of “Ever See a Black Person go to/do....” memes*. However as the track progresses, the Where We Going refrain changes from “which way up do I hold this compass?” fish out of water style self-mockery to a more searching question of where the black community may find itself going in the future. Similarly, opening track Answer Me, Will Ya uses the pretext of a customer survey to ask the audience about the associations (and prejudices) they may have towards anyone in a hip-hop group.  It’s all done with subtlety and with a heavy layer of humour, but no irony, so it cuts through more deeply and invites more self-recognition from the audience than might be offered up when they are lectured by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprasy, though by the time they get to session closer, Hard Times, they are less coy about confronting the listener with tales of degradation, hypocrisy, poverty and lack of charity. 

As entertaining and enjoyable as Krispy 3 were in this session, they did show themselves as being inescapably in thrall to some of hip-hop’s more eye-rolling traits. Third track, Too Damn Ignorant, takes its cue from the inferiority complex which seems to bedevil so many hip-hop groups, namely the sense that they’re not getting the respect that they feel they deserve. In Krispy 3’s case, that might be rooted in the fact that they came from Chorley rather than Manchester, and it provokes an attack on those who accuse them of lacking big city authenticity. Though while the complaints may be genuine, “We’re not country bumpkins!” etc, they manage to turn it around in order to attack the small-mindedness and bad habits of some of the city-slicker figures in the hip-hop fraternity.

*I didn’t come up with a very good label for this, but earlier tonight I saw an advert promoting European Black History Month which featured a number of black people talking about things which they and their community didn’t generally do despite being a part of British society. It was all very tongue in cheek but included statements like “Black people don’t eat Sunday roasts” and “Black people don’t go to Cornwall on holiday” which is the black community’s loss, if true.  But the point remains that these perceptions/prejudices have been reclaimed by the black community in recent years.  Nobody did it better than Stephen K. Amos in his alleged response to a punter after a stand-up gig in Bow, who approached Amos and said, “Fuck me, mate! I never knew black people were funny.”

To which, Amos replied, “Some of us ride bikes.  Have been known to ski. Can work with rudimentary tools.”

Video courtesy of Webbie.  Check out their Peel related podcast.