EPMD

Artist ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap

The acronym EPMD stood for "Erick and Parrish Making Dollars," but the Long Island duo’s accomplishments go far beyond their bank accounts. They released some of the best hip-hop of the '80s and '90s, and are one of the most sampled acts in the genre’s history. Rapper-producer Erick Sermon and MC Parrish Smith sampled funk and rock records to craft laidback head-nodders, spitting rhymes that were fun, street-smart, and packed with unmistakable chemistry. Each of their albums cleverly used the word "business" in its title—the best were Strictly Business, Unfinished Business, and Business Never Personal—and each was full of party starters that rap fans loved and admired. It's no wonder that artists from OutKast to Snoop and Dr. Dre to the Weeknd have sampled their work. EPMD may not get enough credit in the press, but hip-hop would never be the same without them.

June 6, 1988 at PDT
Strictly Business
A seminal moment from hip-hop’s game-changing year, EPMD’s 1988 debut Strictly Business set new standards in funky beatwork and cold-steel rhyming. Released at a time when artists like Public Enemy and Big Daddy Kane were pushing the limits of speed and chaos, EPMD—a Long Island duo made up of Erick Sermon and Parrish “PMD” Smith—took a slower, more methodical approach, one that leaned into the hard, mid-tempo funk of Zapp, Kool & the Gang, and Rick James. EPMD didn’t shy away from traditional hip-hop boasts (“To the average MC I’m known as the Terminator/Funky beatmaker, new jack exterminator” goes one PMD line), but the duo’s bravado was tempered by effortless, unflappable cool. Let LL Cool J and Run-D.M.C. take on their competitors with verbal dynamite; EPMD was going to claim victory with a pair of funky silencers.

Sermon was still in high school when the duo began shopping around its two-song demo, one that landed EPMD a spot at Sleeping Bag Records, the label that released its first single: “It’s My Thing,” an irresistible shot of slow-flowing molasses funk that hit shelves in 1987—and was immediately embraced by tastemaking New York DJ Red Alert. The track featured a slightly out-of-joint loop of the classic breakbeat “7 Minutes of Funk” by The Whole Darn Family (Sermon would later claim the song’s loose, imperfect feel would influence Jay-Z’s 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt). Meanwhile, the single’s B-side, “You’re a Customer,” was partially informed by Parrish’s multicultural experiences in the Boy Scouts and at college, and mined its grooves and textures from rock acts like the Steve Miller Band and ZZ Top.

Both tracks appear on the self-produced Strictly Business, the album that would firmly establish EPMD’s bona fides. Its monster first single, “You Gots to Chill”—built off a Zapp cassette they’d heard being played by Smith’s father—was featured in the very first episode of Yo! MTV Raps. The follow-up single, “Strictly Business,” makes funky work of an Eric Clapton sample, while “The Steve Martin” was created for EPMD’s dancer Stezo (who’d soon have a formidable rap career of his own). And the album’s closing track, the storytelling rap “Jane,” would begin a saga that would follow the group for years—an origin story for a franchise that would spawn no fewer than six sequels.

The success of Strictly Business helped Sermon and Smith launch the collective known as the Hit Squad, which would come to dominate the 1990s, featuring such acts as K-Solo, Das EFX, Redman, and Keith Murray. And the album would influence the sound of pop and hip-hop for years to come: The drums from “You’re a Customer” would be repurposed for such crucial singles as Mario Winans’ “I Don’t Wanna Know” and Gang Starr’s “Mass Appeal,” while Sermon’s opening line to “You Gots to Chill”—“Relax your mind, let your conscience be free/And get down to the sounds of EPMD”—would be tweaked and interpolated by an entire generation’s worth of rappers and DJs. An epochal moment for New York rap, Strictly Business stands as one of the most essential hip-hop albums of the 1980s.
10 Tracks
May 26, 2014 at PDT
Best Of
Among the best duos in hip-hop history, EPMD (Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith) first hit the scene in 1986, coming out of Long Island with a truly original sound that fused mega-funky samples with laid-back, almost monotone rhymes. Their first two albums, Strictly Business and Unfinished Business, are certified classics, both absolutely loaded with essential hit singles, and both racing to the top of the rap charts. They released five more albums between 1990 and 2008, disbanded and reunited a few times, and helped put on several other key artists, including Redman and Das EFX. This collection includes most of their early hits ("You Gots to Chill," "The Big Payback," "So Wat Cha Sayin'," etc.), plus a small handful of later-era gems, most notably "Symphony 2000." While you could easily double this album's length, these are all exceptional joints from a legendary group.
11 Tracks
July 24, 1989 at PDT
Unfinished Business
The second album from EPMD, 1989’s Unfinished Business, picks up right where the duo’s landmark 1988 debut left off, featuring inventive samples and plenty of slow-flowing braggadocio from one of the funkiest duos in rap history. But this time around, Long Island’s Erick Sermon and Parrish “PMD” Smith were able to back up their boasts: “Dropped the album Strictly Business and you thought we would fold,” Smith raps. “Thirty days later, the LP went gold.” Newly minted rap stars at the age of 19, Sermon and Smith were once again coming for necks with a rugged-but-smooth confidence.

The album’s lead single, “So Wat Cha Sayin’,” would become a staple on Yo! MTV Raps (and, along the way, introduce millions of listeners to the slang term “bozack”). The song’s ballistic turntable solos came courtesy of the virtuosic DJ Scratch, who’d been introduced to the group by Run-D.M.C.’s Jam Master Jay, and who’d remain an integral part of EPMD throughout its 1990s run, lending heroic fervor to songs like “The Big Payback.”

The rest of Unfinished Business is as reliably funky as ever. The second installment of the duo’s ongoing “Jane” series finds Smith once again ending up in the bedroom with the saga’s antagonist. “Knick Knack Patty Wack” introduces the formidable Long Island protégé K-Solo, while “Please Listen to My Demo” details the group members’ struggles when they were unsigned dreamers only two years earlier. And the anti drunk-driving story “You Had Too Much to Drink” marks EPMD’s first and only foray into Run-D.M.C.-esque rap-rock.

Like its predecessor, Unfinished Business was a commercial and critical hit—but, more importantly, the album reverberated through hip-hop throughout the 1990s and beyond. Tha Dogg Pound would cover “Knick Knack Patty Wack” in 1997, while Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek would release a stylish, inventive version of “So Wat Cha Sayin’” in 2001. Rapper Evidence of Dilated Peoples even redubbed himself “Mr. Slow Flow,” inspired by a line in the Unfinished Business track “Strictly Snappin’ Necks.” Not long after the album’s release, EPMD would make the leap to Def Jam—the latest step in what would become one of the most remarkable streaks from rap’s golden age.
12 Tracks
December 14, 1990 at PST
Business As Usual
The third album from EPMD, 1990’s Business As Usual, was another dependable dose of hardcore funk-bombs and deliberate, slow-mo rap swagger from Erick Sermon and Parrish “PMD” Smith. Released after the Long Island duo signed to hip-hop monolith Def Jam Records, the album would be EPMD’s third consecutive effort to sell more than 500,000 copies—as well as its third to top Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, a first for any rap artist.

The album’s lead single, “Gold Digger,” was an instant smash, thanks to its rubbery groove and cynical lyrics. Its follow-up, “Rampage,” was a hip-hop showcase co-starring new labelmate LL Cool J, who at the time was attempting to reboot himself as a more harder-edged figure (Sermon says Parrish and LL were secretly battling each other on the track). Though no “Rampage” winner was crowned, Smith’s verse made it into The Source’s esteemed Hip-Hop Quotable section. Sermon’s verse was eventually repurposed as Redman’s “Watch Yo Nuggets,” and the song gave longtime EPMD collaborator DJ Scratch one of the most bonkers turntable solos of the era.

The rest of Business As Usual—including tracks like “I’m Mad,” “Manslaughter,” and “Underground”—mostly finds Sermon and Smith doing what they do best: slaughtering MCs and reporting on it in great detail. “Give the People” is an attack on the media’s hip-hop biases, while “Mr. Bozack” is a safe-sex wake-up call, one that finds Smith getting into an argument with his privates. And the tracks “Hardcore” and “Brothers on My Jock” mark the recording debut of the group’s newest charge, the wildly gifted New Jersey showboater Redman.

Business As Usual would have historical impact well beyond its record-breaking chart accomplishments and landmark guest MC introductions. “Underground” would provide the chorus to Das EFX’s 1992 smash “They Want EFX,” while “Funky Piano” gave DJ Scratch his first production credit (he’d go on to steer the works of 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, DMX, and more). The first EPMD record of the 1990s, Business As Usual was yet another victory for one of the most consistent hip-hops crews of all time.
15 Tracks
July 27, 1992 at PDT
Business Never Personal
Rugged Long Island slick-talkers EPMD closed out the greatest run of hip-hop’s golden era with 1992’s Business Never Personal—a final taste of the duo’s unhurried cool, neck-snapping grooves, and uncompromising devotion to stripped-down rap. It would prove to be yet another chart hit. But, more importantly, Business Never Personal would represent a landmark moment in elemental, back-to-basics east coast hip-hop.

The album’s two smash singles could serve as mission statements for the entire EPMD enterprise. “Crossover,” emerging at the very end of the pop-rap era, took umbrage with rappers using commercial sounds for mass appeal, and found EPMD’s Erick Sermon and Parrish “PMD” Smith pledging allegiance to “the hardcore sound” and “mackadocious funk material” (“You wanna go pop goes the weasel?” asks Sermon. “You know you should be rocking the fans with something diesel”). Using a vocoder hook from Roger Troutman’s recent single “You Should Be Mine,” the song was a full-on attack on modern radio—yet wound up being EPMD’s biggest hit. Meanwhile, the album’s follow-up single, “Head Banger,” celebrates hoodie-clad hip-hop at its most rough and raw. Featuring the always dexterous K-Solo, and a closing verse from a spotlight-stealing Redman, it was the ultimate showcase of the Hit Squad—the hip-hop collective that had been formed by EPMD—and that would usher in a new style of hardcore New York rap. As Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon once noted: “When we was building the Wu, we was emulating the Hit Squad, because the Hit Squad was hard.”

The rest of Business Never Personal finds EPMD at its meanest. “Chill” turns a sample from a Foreigner B-side into a dystopian electronic fanfare; “Cummin’ at Cha” features an absolutely elastic guest verse from Das EFX; and “Who Killed Jane,” part four of EPMD’s ongoing Jane saga, puts Smith at the center of a police drama. The duo would acrimoniously disband shortly after the album’s release, leaving at the height of their success. They’d mend fences by the late 1990s, with more albums to follow. But Business Never Personal would be the capstone to a still-legendary run—as well as a defiant middle finger to hip-hop’s mainstream aspirations.
11 Tracks
December 31, 2012 at PST
Strictly Business (Expanded Edition)
A seminal moment from hip-hop’s game-changing year, EPMD’s 1988 debut Strictly Business set new standards in funky beatwork and cold-steel rhyming. Released at a time when artists like Public Enemy and Big Daddy Kane were pushing the limits of speed and chaos, EPMD—a Long Island duo made up of Erick Sermon and Parrish “PMD” Smith—took a slower, more methodical approach, one that leaned into the hard, mid-tempo funk of Zapp, Kool & the Gang, and Rick James. EPMD didn’t shy away from traditional hip-hop boasts (“To the average MC I’m known as the Terminator/Funky beatmaker, new jack exterminator” goes one PMD line), but the duo’s bravado was tempered by effortless, unflappable cool. Let LL Cool J and Run-D.M.C. take on their competitors with verbal dynamite; EPMD was going to claim victory with a pair of funky silencers.

Sermon was still in high school when the duo began shopping around its two-song demo, one that landed EPMD a spot at Sleeping Bag Records, the label that released its first single: “It’s My Thing,” an irresistible shot of slow-flowing molasses funk that hit shelves in 1987—and was immediately embraced by tastemaking New York DJ Red Alert. The track featured a slightly out-of-joint loop of the classic breakbeat “7 Minutes of Funk” by The Whole Darn Family (Sermon would later claim the song’s loose, imperfect feel would influence Jay-Z’s 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt). Meanwhile, the single’s B-side, “You’re a Customer,” was partially informed by Parrish’s multicultural experiences in the Boy Scouts and at college, and mined its grooves and textures from rock acts like the Steve Miller Band and ZZ Top.

Both tracks appear on the self-produced Strictly Business, the album that would firmly establish EPMD’s bona fides. Its monster first single, “You Gots to Chill”—built off a Zapp cassette they’d heard being played by Smith’s father—was featured in the very first episode of Yo! MTV Raps. The follow-up single, “Strictly Business,” makes funky work of an Eric Clapton sample, while “The Steve Martin” was created for EPMD’s dancer Stezo (who’d soon have a formidable rap career of his own). And the album’s closing track, the storytelling rap “Jane,” would begin a saga that would follow the group for years—an origin story for a franchise that would spawn no fewer than six sequels.

The success of Strictly Business helped Sermon and Smith launch the collective known as the Hit Squad, which would come to dominate the 1990s, featuring such acts as K-Solo, Das EFX, Redman, and Keith Murray. And the album would influence the sound of pop and hip-hop for years to come: The drums from “You’re a Customer” would be repurposed for such crucial singles as Mario Winans’ “I Don’t Wanna Know” and Gang Starr’s “Mass Appeal,” while Sermon’s opening line to “You Gots to Chill”—“Relax your mind, let your conscience be free/And get down to the sounds of EPMD”—would be tweaked and interpolated by an entire generation’s worth of rappers and DJs. An epochal moment for New York rap, Strictly Business stands as one of the most essential hip-hop albums of the 1980s.
15 Tracks
December 31, 1996 at PST
Back in Business
With 1997’s Back In Business, EPMD returned to the rap scene after a five- year hiatus. The duo was well positioned to make a comeback, since the loose, bass-heavy style they pioneered in 1988 had provided the foundation for the ‘90s wave of New York stars that included Nas, Notorious B.I.G. and Redman. Back In Business proved that Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith still had juice. Admittedly, the album falters when they try to imitate their younger competition —“Put On” attempts Mobb Deep, “Dungeon Master” Wu-Tang, “K.I.M.” the Fugees. Thankfully, the majority of the album is distinctly EPMD. “Richter Scale,” “Intrigued” and “Do It Again” are hard-hitting singalongs, and all three songs certify EPMD’s undying expertise when it comes to a catchy hook. The fact that Sermon and Parrish were by this point dividing production credits pointed to internal fractures in the group, but that doesn’t make “Never Seen Before,” “Last Man Standing” and “Get Wit This” any less essential. The songs present the kind of off-kilter funk that could only come from the creative consciousness of EPMD.
16 Tracks
December 31, 1998 at PST
Out of Business
Over the course of the ‘90s EPMD refined its sound, distilling their obese funk loops to straight-line rhythms, and the lethargic lyrical flows to tight verses. The duo created several new-era anthems, a handful of which are contained on their last album of the ‘90's, Out of Business. “Check 1, 2,” “Symphony,” and “Hold Me Down” are tough and tightly knit — they blend the best of old EPMD with tips gleaned from more recent masters like DJ Premier, whose chopping techniques reappear throughout the album. The only downside to the new EPMD style is that while powerful, it is sometimes too clean. The best moments of Out of Business are “Right Now” and “Jane 6,” which allow the bass to lay sloppy in the cut, like extra cheese and onions falling out the side of a grinder. As a bonus, the second disc contains a selection of the duo’s greatest hits. Those songs need no introduction — they are forever peculiar, forever potent, forever relevant.
27 Tracks
December 31, 1998 at PST
Out of Business
14 Tracks
February 4, 2013 at PST
We Mean Business
13 Tracks
October 8, 2020 at PDT
Top Gun - Single
1 Trackfalse
January 17, 2019 at PST
Live Business
11 Tracks
January 27, 2020 at PST
The Instrumentals
16 Tracks
August 1, 2019 at PDT
For the People - Single
1 Trackfalse
October 31, 2019 at PDT
For the People (Illyus & Barrientos Remix) - Single
1 Trackfalse
November 22, 2004 at PST
Serious / U Can't - EP
5 Tracks
March 4, 2018 at PST
Bandwagon (feat. Epmd) - Single
1 Trackfalse
November 29, 2019 at PST
Brothers Froms Brentwood Long Island - Single
2 Tracks
February 12, 2020 at PST
The Main Event Remix - Single
1 Trackfalse
December 31, 1997 at PST
Business Never Personal (Clean Album)
11 Tracks
June 6, 1998 at PDT
Strictly Business - EP
6 Tracks
September 20, 2004 at PDT
Danger Zone! / The Truth - EP
6 Tracks
February 13, 2020 at PST
For the People (Sonny Fodera Remix) - EP
4 Tracks
December 31, 1998 at PST
Out of Business
14 Tracks
December 6, 2009 at PST
Never Defeat Em (feat. EPMD) - Single
2 Tracks

EPMD

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