Guys and Dolls: NSO Force - In 2 Deep (7 May 1993)

 

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NSO = No Sell Out

My notes seem to suggest that I misinterpreted what In 2 Deep was about when I first heard it. I thought it was tremendous, but was perturbed by troubling sentiments. I was probably guilty of taking the title and the line at the 38 second mark about re-offending, as a sign that the track was about the narrator embracing crime, and accepting it as their way of life, because it was impossible to turn back from it.

However, it’s become clear to me on subsequent listens that it’s a repudiation both of a criminal life and living a conventional 9-to-5 existence. The NSO crew - Douglas Haywoode, Niles Hailstones and Ola The Soul Controller - have clear heads about both their purpose and the sacrifices they will have to make in order to be true to what they want to do. However, there’s no bravado on show here. The mood of the track is quite downbeat with its  repeated wah-wah sample reflecting all the possibilities being gone over and rejected, and the jazz trumpet evoking the nourish sense of late nights and melancholia at the struggles which await them as they try both to develop as artists, and stay true to their cultural principles.

And make no mistake, “struggle” is the central theme of In 2 Deep. It’s the struggle not to work as a wage slave or puppet, so as to attain the dream of a place in Battersea, eating caviar and swine - now that’s what I call London weighting. It’s a struggle not to get embroiled in intra-racial conflicts with other black people and artists over trivialities - such as a brand of trainer - which can wind up leaving people dead.  And it’s a struggle which has to be faced alone. I found the most affecting section of the track to be the run  from 1:23 to 2:16, where the MC laments the way in which nobody impedes the progress of black people more than other black people, and in rap/hip-hop, you have to keep your aspirations quiet as you build them up, so as not to attract dangerous attention. Choose your time to flex, wisely, appears to be the message. 

And then there’s the pressure to succeed before life either makes other choices for them, or the streets end up claiming them, one way or another. The closing refrain of Time is running out adds another layer of pressure to the NSO Force’s mission. The track carries the weight of mental agony and it transmits the harshness of urban London life. NSO Force certainly had to put up with their share of setbacks, including the disappointment of seeing their one and only Peel Session, recorded in November 1989, go unbroadcast due to excessive swearing.

But it’s not all grim stuff. If nothing else, this may be the only hip-hop track to ever feature the words dilly dally in it.

Video courtesy of Sentinal One.