Underground Philly hip-hop debut turns 35

This week marks the 35^th anniversary of the release of Philadelphia rapper Steady B’s classic debut album Bring the Beat Back. Released July 25, 1986, this LP still sits in my vinyl collection and remains one of my favorite underground records.

I was introduced to Steady B on Dallas’ KNON, which was 90.9 FM back then. The “All Hearty Def Party” and “Knowledge Dropped, Lessons Taught” programs on Wednesday and Thursday nights, respectively, played underground hip-hop from all over the country. This wasn’t the popular rap stuff you could hear every day on the urban station down the radio dial.

Armed with a cassette tape in the deck set on record and pause, I recorded hours of hip-hop tracks and mixes from the likes of Just-Ice, Mantronix, the Gucci Crew 2, USA Breakers, Roxanne Shante, Boogie Down Productions, Eric B & Rakim, Philly’s Marvelous Marv & DJ Cash Money and of course Steady B.

After capturing a couple of Steady B tracks on my mix tapes, Bring the Beat Back soon became one of my earliest hip-hop music purchases.

The album, featuring DJs Grand Dragon K.D. and Tat Money, brought you through a minimalist beat fest with very little sampling but much more scratching and drum cuts. And Steady’s vocals stood strong against such a stark musical backdrop.

Lyrically adept, the bespectacled paragraph pro rapped about being 17 years old, rocking the mic and hanging out on the Hilltop, his favorite area in Philly. On most tracks, Steady displayed his yelling vocal style, but calmed it down in “Get Physical,” which was produced by New York’s Juice Crew member Marley Marl.

Side 1 ended with the by teaching a new dance, “Do the Fila,” which was heavily influenced by co-Philly rapper Joeski Love’s “Pee Wee’s Dance” released earlier that year—same music with different lyrics. Does anybody out there know how to do the Fila? What about the Pee Wee Herman?

Bring the Beat Back was basically nine bangers out of 10 tracks that helped establish Philadelphia’s hip-hop roots. The odd man out was the weak “Cheating Girl.” After all the debauchery of “Surprise,” Steady did a 180 in this tune and plays the sensitive guy on the short end of a bad relationship.

Who else has this record or any of its tracks?