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Three the Hard Way and White Flash - Hyped
(you may have to turn up the volume, as the sound on this one is pretty low)
About a year ago, I posted a video from a Public Access show, "Goldie's Hot Raps," with a performance from a Connecticut group calling themselves Three the Hard Way. Featuring coordinated dancing, high top fades, a dj who looked like he also doubled as the group's bodyguard, gold chains and matching sweat suits, the video managed to capture just about everything that made hip hop great in '88. I spent a fair amount of time trying to dig up more from the group, but I didn't have any luck until I recently came across the above song on YouTube.
As it turns out, the group released two EPs during their brief time together. There was a three song Heartbeat EP in 1987 and then a followup the next year called Hyped. The above video is from their Hyped EP, and while it sadly does not have anywhere near as exciting a dance routine as the earlier video, they do seem to have stepped up their wardrobe game, rocking a set of matching Chicago Bulls warmups. The group must have had some level of success at the time, because they managed to get the legendary Ivan "DJ Doc" Rodriguez to handle the engineering duties for Hyped. It would have been interesting to hear a full album from the group with Doc behind the boards.
Here's one of the songs off of their first EP which, unfortunately, doesn't have an actual video to go along with it:
Three the Hard Way featuring White Flash - Heart Beat
It's also worth noting that there was another group from Connecticut calling themselves "3 the Hardway," who started out in the same group as the Skinny Boys. One of their members, Be Bad, came through and left a comment on the site the last time this subject came up. Performing under the name "The L.O.D. Crew", 3 the Hardway and the Skinny Boys recorded a few songs together in the early 80's. You can hear one of the songs, Fill the Be-Bop, on Stones Throw's compilation album The Third Unheard: Connecticut Hip Hop 1979-1983.
10/19/2008 11:31:01 AM posted by Fresh