Slick Rick - The Wizard of Storytelling

Uncle Ricky, could you read us a bedtime story?

Please, huh, please?

All right, you kids get to bed, I’ll get the storybook

Y'all tucked in? Yeah

Here we go

(from "Children's Story")

Among the greats of hip-hop, Ricky Martin Lloyd Walters, aka Slick Rick, is one artist who risks being overlooked. And yet his role in enriching this music with a brand-new figure, that of the storyteller, is absolutely fundamental — a role he played with undisputed mastery straddling the Eighties and Nineties.

For American hip-hop heads, his cult status is undeniable, confirmed by the staggering number of samples drawn from his best-known tracks. Above all, "La Di Da Di," the 1985 single recorded with producer and beatboxer Doug E. Fresh, is a perfect case study: it's been sampled by more than 1,200 songs, from Biggie to Beyoncé, from Miley Cyrus to the Beastie Boys, from Robbie Williams to Lana Del Rey.

"Children's Story" (1989), the second single from his debut album, can't claim over a thousand explicit citations, but it has still been used by Eminem, Aesop Rock, Migos, De La Soul, Rakim, Public Enemy, Redman and dozens of other artists. And that's just counting the samples. If we broaden the scope to the stylistic influence Slick Rick has had — considering the new way he approached the craft of hip-hop — we could build from his slim discography a whole galaxy of connections that would help us better appreciate his influence on the hip-hop of the following decades, even in Italy. Here, perhaps, it's a matter of a different sensibility among listeners toward lyrics, which are essential to understanding the importance of his key songs and albums. What's more, when hip-hop music spread across national borders, Slick Rick wasn't easily able to release new albums or play shows, unlike Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa or the Beastie Boys, who thus became etched in the collective memory of young listeners of the time.

The reason is simple: he was in prison for attempted murder and had run-ins with US immigration authorities. Hip-hop's storyteller par excellence is an exception for plenty of other reasons too, for instance his wildly eccentric way of presenting himself to the public: jewelry so oversized it bordered on comical, regal crowns, flashy outfits, and an iconic eyepatch over his right eye. But to properly contextualize his role in hip-hop, we need to tell his story from the beginning.

The great adventures of Slick Rick

Born in London in 1965 to Jamaican parents, Ricky Martin Lloyd Walters lost the use of his right eye in a childhood accident. After arriving in the United States at age 11, specifically in the Bronx, he met rapper Dana Dane at school, with whom he formed the Kangol Crew. Despite spending his teenage years in New York, he would always keep his English accent with Jamaican inflections. The turning point in his career came when he teamed up with Doug E. Fresh, a celebrated beatboxer who was floored by his talent and brought him into the Get Fresh Crew. "The Show" is one of the most important singles of Eighties hip-hop. Released in August 1985, it had the already-mentioned "La Di Da Di" as its B-side. The A-side is a tight back-and-forth between the two voices, featuring fragments of the theme music from the animated series "Inspector Gadget," an array of vocal inventions mostly courtesy of Slick Rick — still known at the time as MC Ricky D. — and his partner's extraordinary beatbox skills. The song was a huge success for its era, establishing itself as one of the most beloved hip-hop tracks the public had heard up to that point. Over time, it would go on to sell over a million copies at home.

Much could be written about "La Di Da Di." Beyond what's already been said about the samples and tributes, it's worth recapping its key moments. Even its opening seconds are legendary, instantly transporting us to another era of hip-hop, one of more or less amateur house parties, where the emcee acts as the crowd's entertainer. "Okay, party people in the house" became, over the years, a widely used phrase, or outright sample. The same fate befell the line that closes the track's intro: "As we go a little something like this Hit it".

From N.W.A. to Eminem, this intro — similar to what we'd today call a freestyle — is already enough to prove the cult status behind the track. The first proper verse is practically essential listening in its entirety for devotees, but it's worth quoting at least the opening lines:

La-di-da-di, we like to party

We don't cause trouble, we don't bother nobody, we're

Just some men that’s on the mic

And when we rock up on the mic we rock the mic (Right)

The actual story begins with the start of Slick Rick's day: "I woke up around ten o'clock in the morning". Even this simple line would be echoed by countless other hip-hop "wake-ups," starting with Ice T's "6 in the Morning," one of the foundational tracks of gangsta rap.

The art of storytelling, which will make him hip-hop's storyteller par excellence, also shows up in the way the lyrics reach the listener, that is, in the delivery: when, retracing his day, he stretches out still half-asleep, for instance, his voice quickly warps into a half-yawn. The richness of his rap also lies in his use of pop-culture elements, woven in with varying degrees of freedom. Here, for example, in just the first verse he references the Snow White mirror as well as various brands, including Polo, Gucci and Kangol. But Slick Rick does much more than that, because when he meets a girl he not only sketches her out in a few effective lines but also hums to her his own version of "Sukiyaki", a 1981 hit that reinterpreted a 1961 Japanese song performed by Kyu Sakamoto. Then the girl's mother shows up and, in a twist, the two women come to blows over him. In an attempt to win the rapper over, the mother too breaks into song, naturally also voiced by Slick Rick:

Ricky, Ricky, Ricky, can’t you see?

Somehow your words just hypnotize me

And I just love your jazzy ways

Oh, MC Rick, my love is here to stay!

Quoted in the chorus of Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize", this little tune is just another of the standout moments in "La Di Da Di".

Having defined his unique style, Slick Rick wastes no time on his way to wider success. He becomes one of Def Jam's first artists, the label that releases his debut The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick (1988), arguably the most important album in hip-hop storytelling

These 12 tales combine sharp wit, rhyming skill and communicative power. The cartoonish, theatrical approach of his performances sets him apart from a towering contemporary like Rakim: where Slick Rick offers detailed, colourful stories, drawn from everyday life and reworked in exaggerated fashion, Rakim is introspective, deep and complex; while Slick Rick focuses on vocal variations to embody different characters, the rapper behind "Paid In Full" (1987) proves himself a master of flow, working the beat with sheer elegance.

A major commercial success, The Great Adventures Of Slick Rick opens with "Treat Her Like A Prostitute", the only older track ("Here's An Oldie But Goodie") and a treatise on misogyny that has aged terribly. A clumsy attempt at male empowerment, it's a song that can only be understood in its context. At the very least, it introduces Slick Rick's narrative style, as he tells three short stories across as many verses, like an episodic tale with a shared (despicable) moral: women must be treated badly, until proven otherwise, because they cheat and hurt without a shred of remorse.

"The Ruler's Back", built on a beat by Jam Master Jay, is the first truly new track and has become a classic of late-Eighties hip-hop. Its simple structure echoes "La Di Da Di", with the drum machine replacing the beatbox and those iconic horns in the chorus. Slick Rick's relaxed flow is on full display: with his English accent, he glides unhurriedly through the verses, laid back in a way Snoop Dogg would later echo on "Gin And Juice" (1994).

Jay-Z would clearly draw on this track for his own "The Blueprint" (2001), offering his own take on it. The true masterpiece, though, is "Children's Story", the song that best sums up Slick Rick's depth as a storyteller. Like "La Di Da Di", it has been sampled by dozens of different artists, although without reaching the astronomical numbers mentioned above. It tells the story of two young men who turn to theft with youthful carelessness, failing to grasp the risks and consequences of their crimes. One of the two eventually runs into an undercover detective, an event that leads to him being cornered and killed at just 17 years old.

It's a track in which Slick Rick shows off his talent for voicing different characters, from the child he addresses at the start in a high-pitched voice to the two young protagonists of the story; what's more, he also plays the policeman and a heroin addict, all while delivering a text that shifts constantly in rhythm and density, with no choruses. The ridiculous tone that opens the track contrasts with its tragic ending, and one of the rapper's final lines couldn't be more explicit: "This ain't funny so don't you dare laugh".

Slick Rick's moral fable is a sacred text for hip-hop storytelling, proof of just how powerful the voice can be in bringing a cinematic tale to life without sacrificing any of its immediacy, despite its dramatic ending.

After fantasizing about sleeping with a drug dealer's woman on "The Moment I Feared", delivered in a few lightning-quick lines, and partying on "Let's Get Crazy", with more comic voices amid a flurry of scratches and samples courtesy of the Bomb Squad, we arrive at another racy, off-colour, adults-only tale: "Indian Girl (An Adult Story)" is once again a one-man show for Slick Rick at the mic, with his hilarious theatrical arsenal, but here he's content to spin a short sex-themed story, powered by broad, goofy humour. Amid a tracklist geared toward explicit verses, the nostalgic ballad "Teenage Love" stands out, a mellow rap chosen as the lead single that recalls LL Cool J's "I Need Love" from the previous year. Elsewhere on the tracklist, worth noting are at least "Mona Lisa", with its final twist, and the brash "Lick The Balls", with crucial support from the Bomb Squad.

Among the many elements that make these rhymed tales flow so smoothly is also the widespread use of punch in and punch out techniques, that is, partial overlaps between two recordings, used to best convey the feel of a genuine multi-voice dialogue.

The Storyteller Behind Bars

In 1989 his cousin, who also worked as his bodyguard, tried to extort money from him. After he was fired, death threats even followed. Frightened, Slick Rick bought a gun to protect himself, and in 1990, after spotting his cousin in the neighborhood, fired four shots, wounding his former bodyguard and a bystander, neither seriously. Among other charges, he was accused of double attempted murder and sentenced to five years' detention. An immigration-related issue also contributed to lengthening his sentence. He would not finish serving it until 1997.

Released temporarily on bail, he put out The Ruler's Back (1991), marked by a substantial shift in his rap style: having partly set aside the comic, theatrical approach of his debut — the one for which later generations would remember him — Slick Rick proved himself capable of handling fast tracks with some frenetic verses.

With the exhilarating energy of the past gone, likely also due to his complicated personal troubles, the album opens with a "King" that will disappoint anyone hoping for a replica of the debut. "Venus" and "Ship" follow a similar path.

A bit of that old magic dust returns on "I Shouldn't Have Done It", though it still ends tragically: it's one of his trademark little stories, this time about the self-sabotage of an insecure man who cheats on his woman.

The energy is often missing all the same, as on "Mistakes Of A Woman In Love With Other Men" or the melancholic "Runaway". That this is an album built with less inspiration is confirmed too by the festive closer, "Slick Rick – The Ruler", which recycles verses already heard on the debut.

The third album, Behind Bars (1994), is heavily marked by his time in prison. Full of dark tracks, it's steeped in pessimism and bitterness and leans toward a more nocturnal sonic palette. The opening "Behind Bars", built on a jazz-rap beat from Prince Paul, takes us inside life behind bars, but the tragic story of "All Alone (No One To Be With)", about teenage mothers and social hardship, hits even harder.

The sweet melancholy of "Sittin' In My Car" (feat. Doug E. Fresh), with the return of beatbox, is another memorable moment on an album that nonetheless suffered a troubled gestation, one that even forced the reuse of two previously released tracks. The closer is a remix of "Behind Bars" with Warren G, which turns out, surprisingly, to be the definitive version of the song: the guest ramps up its momentum, cementing it as an East Coast classic.

The Art of Storytelling

His return after prison is a brazen act of self-celebration: The Art Of Storytelling (1999), an album that sounds like a classic even as many of his fans had become superstars in the meantime. Slick Rick comes back to the scene with the aura of a recognized master, overindulging with 21 tracks on the tracklist, including skits, intros and outros.

He imitates, and essentially parodies, gangsta rap on "Kill Niggaz", then returns to his trademark playful storytelling on "Street Talkin'" (with Big Boi of Outkast) and meets the genius of "Illmatic" on "Me & Nas Bring It To Your Hardest". As these opening tracks show, a good portion of the album serves as a tribute to himself, through the numerous star-studded guest appearances, confirmed also by "Frozen" with Raekwon and "Unify" with Snoop Dogg.

When left on his own, Slick Rick only works in fits and starts: the years behind bars seem to have sapped some power from his rap, still fluid and elegant for sure, but less colorful and less fun than in his early days. On "2 Way Street", for instance, his voice is nearly swallowed up by the beat, distant. Timidly, a few things get updated to fit the sound of the turn of the millennium, as heard on the more electronic "I Run This". Even the explicit lyrics aren't what they used to be: "Adults Only" is plain pornography, without irony.

The cult following, however, seems to override even this album's obvious shortcomings, drawing a flurry of glowing reviews, including from America's hip-hop bible "The Source", which hands out a very generous 4 stars out of 5.

At a time when hip-hop was breaking into the global mainstream, Slick Rick received the honors due to one of the genre's greats, even though this turn-of-the-millennium album is scattered and disappointing.

In 2002 he was arrested again, for 17 months, once more on immigration charges. In 2006 proceedings were launched to deport him back to the United Kingdom. In 2008 New York governor David Paterson permanently put an end to Slick Rick's legal troubles, recognizing his good conduct since his release. He officially became a US citizen only in 2016. Things also started moving again on the new-music front, though nothing significant happened until the announcement, in 2023, of a new album.

Another Great Adventure

His fifth studio album is called Victory (2025), arriving 26 years after its predecessor. Accompanied by a film, it's pitched as a majestic work, but it clocks in at just 27 minutes split across 15 tracks. His rapping is in excellent shape, fluid and elegant, still marked by his gifts as a magnetic and, when called for, flamboyant performer. The sound blends the classic style of the Nineties with denser, more dynamic beats, layered and intricately produced.

The brisk mix of jazz-rap and boom-bap on "Stress" (feat. Giggs) revolves around the repetition of its title, while "Angelic" makes the most of his charm as a rapper with a relaxed flow. The more cartoonish side resurfaces, at least in part, on "Foreign", but the irony isn't enough to offset self-congratulatory moments like "I Did That".

When Nas shows up on "Documents", it unfortunately seems that the years weighing on Slick Rick's shoulders, and a life undoubtedly battered by legal troubles, have taken their toll. The decision to try his hand at techno on "Come On Let's Go" and "Cuz I'm Here" is baffling, totaling barely four minutes between them. The most aggressive track is probably the closer, "Another Great Adventure", built on a distorted bassline, though even this one wraps up after just 93 seconds.

As of 2025, then, Slick Rick remains relevant mostly for what he did at the start of his career. His early singles and debut album are essential to hip-hop between the Eighties and Nineties. The rest of his career was derailed by legal troubles, which made his subsequent albums sporadic, even if they were still graced with a few other notable tracks. This latest return to the scene strikes this writer as essentially a pretext to get people talking about him again and collect the tribute of genre devotees, who can hardly deny the enormous influence he's had on the evolution of storytelling within hip-hop culture.

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