Make It Last Forever by Keith Sweat
Throwback Review by KillER Mike Everybody is on that 80s shit now. But I think people got the 80’s mixed up with the episodes of Fresh Prince they saw where everybody dressed corny as a muthafucka, even if it was with some fresh shit like a Polo, they rocked it real corny. Everybody has been kinda emulating the TV images of the 80s, but what I remember about the 80s was seeing young, black millionaires, foreign cars, fly girls, the smell of marijuana and the sight of everything being bought by cocaine. It was the 70s on steroids. In the 70s it was cocaine, in the 80s it was crack, and Keith Sweat was doing music that was pure and earnest. When he sang something to a broad, he meant it, like “Something Ain’t Right.” The music was so thick, and so gutter, and that 808 was so strong, but at the same time it was polished. Keith Sweat sang in the style of music. Make It Last Forever overwhelmed me on an emotional level. This is what I heard my uncles listening to when they were pushing their Caprices and Cadillacs. I was a kid when this was coming out; I wasn’t even getting pussy yet. Every older girl I had a crush on would listen to Keith Sweat. I would be on the block with my brother watching a purple BMW go down the street and a green Cadillac and we were looking at the girls in the biker shorts tryin to get chose by the dope boys. And the rope chains that these dope boys were wearing wasn’t fake. But getting to [the throwback review], we’re gonna start with “Something Just Ain’t Right,” that’s the theme of this Throwback Review. Something just ain’t right. The retro shit I see people doing now trying to represent the 80’s just ain’t right. It may look like some 80’s shit, but it’s too much broke wrist shit going on. Keith Sweat was dope-boy R&B music. It was real player type shit, man. So we’re gonna take it to that ’88 dope boy shit. This album came out in 1987. Right now a group that musically relates to Keith Sweat, in terms of that ghetto soul, is Pretty Ricky. Their music is thick like Keith Sweat’s, but they’re a little nastier, and they’re a little more like Jodeci
and H-Town, but it’s thick. The second track on the album was “Right and the Wrong Way,” and that is one of my all-time favorite songs. The shit still beats to this day. “Right and the Wrong Way” was like Houston screw music before screw came out, back in 1987. Paul Wall used to take all this music and slow it down and screw it, and it had the deep groove; “Right and the Wrong Way” is a great sex song. This song is for you if you’re 30 years old and you know she’s 19, but you’re still fuckin’ with her anyway. This is the song that dope dealers played when they drove past the elementary school. But back then, elementary school went until 7th grade, and you had lil’ 15 year old niggas in hooked up cars going to pick up little 13 year old girls. The world was outta control, man! It was money everywhere! Everybody sold cocaine. You would ride the yellow bus all the way to high school, and get off at the high school and walk down to see a line of candy colored cars with ragtops and shiny rims, and every car was beating this Keith Sweat. Before they bumped rap, they would bump this Keith Sweat for 30 minutes outside the school. It got to the point where the principal started having the police park at the school to keep it moving, because this music was taking the girls out of school; they were coming back pregnant. So, this is definitely the ultimate fuck music. This is the real shit. R&B has got so muthafuckin’ hokey nowadays - and I ain’t mad at these contemporary R&B singers congratulating a woman on being the shit, but that ain’t telling me what I need to say to her to get in them drawls. I’m trying to tell you something that’s gon’ get in them muthafuckin’ drawls, for real, and when I get in there, I’m gon’ knock a muthafuckin screw loose. You gon’ love me for it. And that’s what this Keith Sweat music does, but it says it in a nice way. You gotta listen to what this nigga says. He say, “You might be young, but you ready!” If you’re about 26 and you got something that’s about 20, she’s a sophomore at Spelman, man you’re having the time of yo muthafuckin’ life, man! There’s a lot of Taqwauns and Shamias in the world now because of Keith Sweat. This music had the power to make socially elite girls love dope boys. It’s that ’88 Dope Boys shit. And when I say that, I just feel that it’s certain shit that dope boys do that’s swagged out. Even if you look at the Keith Sweat album cover, it was pre-Coogi, but the nigga wearing like a Coogi-looking dope boy sweater. He’s got the same damn haircut Lil Boosie’s got now, that lil’ slick ass box that’s tapered, with the piece of jewelry. It was all about swag, and when you look at the 80’s, I don’t know where all this clown shit people are doing now came from, because the 80’s was swagged out. If you look at all those old pictures of Big Danny Kane, Al. B Sure, and even Heavy D, it was real street-knit fashions. The music was rich, Keith Sweat’s vocals were rich, and we got the same accountant, so I know he’s still RICH! When I was a kid I rode the bus all the way across town to go the music store one day, it took me all damn day. My intention was to buy Ice-T’s new shit, Luke, and N.W.A. When I was in the store I heard this knocking outside the store, and I got outside
and it’s that shit my mama be playing. My mama had a metallic blue Trans-Am with “Fly Girl” across the front, so I was used to hearing a decent system, but this shit was just KNNNNOCKIN! So I go outside and go up the car and yell, “Ay, man!” And the dude turned his joint down, and I asked him, “What you playing?” He said, “This that Keith Sweat playa, playa.” I went back in the record store, and looked at the album cover, and I was so young at that point life was about Starter Jackets and dope boys Nikes. I didn’t give a fuck about no Bill Cosby sweater or no jewelry like that. I was just trying to be the little nigga in the Starter jacket. It was a big decision. I had to choose between a rap record and this Keith Sweat. I said, “Fuck it, gimme the Keith Sweat tape.” I was walking out the parking lot looking like a little round bowling ball, I think I had a Raiders jacket on. I had a boombox at my mama’s house. So I went to my room, put that tape in, closed all my doors, turned the lights off and just kept looking at the bass meter on my boombox, it just kept hittin’ red. I was jammin to that “I Want Her,” with Teddy Riley, that was some dope shit. But that “Make It Last Forever,” man, that was something completely different. I was sitting there in my room, playing this song and thinking about the car I heard bumping this. I would just dream about all the shit I wanted; the kinda car I want, the kinda girl I want, all that. I was messing with a little chick back then that stayed in Douglasville, and I would listen to Keith Sweat and just start practicing my game and what I was gonna say to this girl. And I really learned how to talk that shit. Next thing you know, I was 13 years old trying to set the bait for some 16 year old tail. I was up in the malls trying to buy the Keith Sweat sweaters and playing his music, because that’s what they listened to. I wasn’t gettin’ no pussy back then, but I knew when I got some pussy this is what I was gon’ play. Keith Sweat was soul music on steroids—naw, it was cocaine turned to crack. And the reason I say that is because those niggas who did soul music were some of the most gutter, hood, slum muthafuckers out of Detroit or Philadelphia. They was straight out the hood, so you know they had some hood dude mentalities. But the songs they sang always had that game. During the crack era the shit they did; the synthesizers and the 808’s, and making the music diesel to accommodate that bass was incredible. I used to bump “In The Rain.” Most people don’t know that song was actually a remake of The Dramatics song. If yo’ girl caught you cheatin’, it was cool, man. Just play this “In the Rain” shit while you talk to her on the phone or ride with her and it was all good. This was the record I got to dance to with Lashaun at school dance and she let me grab on her big ole booty. She was the hood girl with the big booty who let you touch it about twice a year and made you feel like a man. Keith Sweat was really New Jack Swing without all the extra bells and whistles and excitement. This album only had 8 songs, but it was complete. The average song is over five minutes, and this really is sex music. This album has made a lot of babies and ended a lot of arguments, because after the fussing comes the fucking. “Make It Last Forever” was dope in ’87 and it’s dope in ’09. // - As told to Eric Perrin OZONE MAG // 61