''Symphony in Effect'' is the debut album of Canadian

rapper Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...

Maestro Fresh-Wes Wesley "Wes" Williams (born March 31, 1968) is a Canadian rapper, record producer, actor, and author. He is known professionally by his stage names Maestro Fresh Wes (formerly Maestro Fresh-Wes) or Maestro as a musician, and is credited by his ...

, released in 1989 on

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

/ LMR Records. In Canada, the album was certified

platinum Platinum is a chemical element with the symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name originates from Spanish , a diminutive of "silver". Platinu ...

and was the second-best selling

Cancon Canadian content (abbreviated CanCon, cancon or can-con; ) refers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) requirements, derived from the Broadcasting Act of Canada, that radio and television Broadcasting, broadc ...

album in Canada of 1990. It remains one of the best-selling

Canadian hip hop The Canadian hip hop scene was established in the 1980s. Through a variety of factors, it developed much slower than Canada's popular rock music scene, and apart from a short-lived burst of mainstream popularity from 1989 to 1991, it remained l ...

albums of all time.Border Block - Canadian Hip Hop vs. America
cbc.ca. Accessed on October 23, 2008. The first single "

Let Your Backbone Slide "Let Your Backbone Slide" is the debut single by Maestro Fresh-Wes, released in 1989 from his first album, '' Symphony in Effect''. In Canada, over 50,000 copies of the single were sold, making Maestro the first Canadian rapper to have a gold singl ...

" became the first

hit single A hit song, also known as a hit record, hit single or simply a hit, is a recorded song or instrumental that becomes broadly popular or well-known. Although ''hit song'' means any widely played or big-selling song, the specific term ''hit record' ...

in Canadian hip hop history, and appeared on ''Billboard'''s

Hot Rap Singles Hot Rap Songs (formerly known as Hot Rap Tracks and Hot Rap Singles) is a chart released weekly by '' Billboard'' in the United States. It lists the 25 most popular hip-hop/rap songs, calculated weekly by airplay on rhythmic and urban radio stat ...

chart. A second single, "Drop the Needle", was released in 1990.

Background

After making his radio debut on

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

's CKLN in 1983, Maestro formed the Vision Crew with Ebony MC. The duo opened for hip-hop acts such as

Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe p ...

, Ice-T, and

Beastie Boys Beastie Boys were an American rap rock group from New York City, formed in 1978. The group was composed of Mike D, Michael "Mike D" Diamond (vocals, drums), Adam Yauch, Adam "MCA" Yauch (vocals, bass), and Ad-Rock, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz (voca ...

before breaking up in 1987.Artist: Maestro
Jam! Music. Accessed on October 18, 2011. Originally known as Melody MC, he changed his alias to Maestro Fresh-Wes in 1988 and released the independent demos ''You Can't Stop Us Now'' and "I'm Showin' You", which featured his new DJ, LTD. The next year, he performed at the

New Music Seminar The New Music Seminar (NMS) is a Music Conference and Festival held annually each June in New York City. The New Music Seminar originally ran from 1980 to 1995 and was relaunched in 2009. NMS features over 150 CEOs and other executives, presiden ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where he walked away with a

record deal A recording contract (commonly called a record contract or record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote. Artists ...

with independent label

LeFrak-Moelis Records LeFrak-Moelis Records (or LMR for short) was a New York City-based record label founded by Samuel J. LeFrak of the LeFrak Organization and music industry veteran Herb Moelis. They had initial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Miami-bas ...

(LMR). Later that year, he released ''Symphony in Effect'' which included "I'm Showin' You" and "Just Swingin'", featuring his friend Ebony MC. Maestro's manager

Farley Flex Farley Flex (born Farley Fridal, August 9, 1962) is a Media Consultant, promoter (entertainment), music promoter, talent manager, artist manager, and motivational speaker. He is best known for being a judge on the reality television series ''Canad ...

also made an appearance on the track "LTD's on the Wheel(s) of Fortune".

Reception

The album was successful in Canada, with 190,000 copies sold, nearly going double platinum. It peaked at #4 on Canada's ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' Albums Chart. RapReviews.com gave it a 7/10 rating, stating "Maestro Fresh-Wes was exactly the right rapper to put Canadian hip-hop on the map." The album won the first

Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year The Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year was introduced in 1991, and awarded for the best rap album in Canada. It was formerly known as Best Rap Recording from 1993 to 2002. Before 1999, because of the relatively limited commercial visibility o ...

in 1991.

Track listing

† Maximum 60 is incorrectly credited as the producer of "Let Your Backbone Slide".

Samples

*"Drop the Needle" – Contains a sample of "Dance Desire" by Haywire *"The Mic's My Piece – Contains a sample of "

The Mexican ''The Mexican'' is a 2001 American dark comedy adventure crime film directed by Gore Verbinski and stars Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt in lead roles. Its plot is a mixture of different genres. Plot In Los Angeles, a traffic light changes to red a ...

" by

Babe Ruth George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...

*"I'm Showin' You" – Contains samples of "

Love Rollercoaster "Love Rollercoaster" is a song by American funk music, funk/R&B band Ohio Players, originally featured on their 1975 album ''Honey (Ohio Players album), Honey''. It was composed by William Beck, Leroy "Sugarfoot" Bonner, Leroy Bonner, Marshall ...

" by

Ohio Players Ohio Players is an American funk band, most popular in the 1970s. They are best known for their songs "Fire (Ohio Players song), Fire" and "Love Rollercoaster", and for their erotic album covers that featured nude or nearly nude women. Many of t ...

and "So Ruff, So Tuff" by

Roger Troutman Roger Troutman (November 29, 1951 – April 25, 1999), also known as Roger, was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist and the founder of the band Zapp who helped spearhead the funk movement and heavily influenc ...

*"Let Your Backbone Slide" – Contains samples of "The Champ" by

The Mohawks William Alan Hawkshaw (27 March 1937 – 16 October 2021) was a British composer and performer, particularly of library music used as themes for movies and television programs. Hawkshaw worked extensively for the KPM production music company ...

, "

Funky Drummer "Funky Drummer" is a single released by James Brown in 1970. Its drum break, improvised by Clyde Stubblefield, is one of the most frequently sampled music recordings. Recording and composition "Funky Drummer" was recorded on November 20, 1969 ...

" by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honor ...

, "Set It Off" by

Strafe Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...

, "

La Di Da Di "La Di Da Di" is a song performed by Doug E. Fresh, who provides the beatboxed instrumental, and MC Ricky D (later known as Slick Rick), who performs the vocals. It was originally released in 1985 as the B-side to " The Show". The song has since ...

" by

Doug E. Fresh Doug E. Fresh (born September 17, 1966) is a Barbados-born American rapper, record producer, and beatboxer, also known as the "Human Beat Box". The pioneer of 20th-century American beatboxing, Fresh is able to accurately imitate drum machines an ...

and

Slick Rick Richard Martin Lloyd Walters (born January 14, 1965), better known as Slick Rick, is an English-American rapper and record producer. He rose to prominence with Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew in the mid-1980s. Their songs " The Show" and " ...

, "One, Two, Three" by The B-Boys, and "

Rebel Without a Pause "Rebel Without a Pause" is a song by hip hop group Public Enemy and the first single from their 1988 album, ''It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back''. The title is a reference to the 1955 film ''Rebel Without a Cause''. History "Rebel With ...

" by

*"The Maestro" – Contains a sample of "Bring It Here" by Wild Sugar *"Tear It Up" - Contains a sample of "The Lovomaniacs (Sex)" by Boobie Knight & The Universal Lady

Chart positions

Album Singles

References

{{Authority control 1989 debut albums Maestro Fresh-Wes albums Attic Records albums Juno Award for Rap Recording of the Year recordings