worst album ever: “prime time”

In 1995, Deion Sanders — nicknamed “Prime Time” — was a two-sport star fresh off a 1994 Super Bowl victory with the San Francisco 49ers, newly signed to the Dallas Cowboys and still hanging onto a baseball career, then with the Cincinnati Reds. As the heir to Bo Jackson’s two-sport crown, Prime Time was at the peak of his cultural and athletic influence, with huge endorsement deals and numerous commercials in heavy rotation, all at the tender age of 27. Faced with immense pressure and a public hungry for more and more of his talent and wit, the young iconoclast did what only he could do: release one of the worst records ever made.

Opening with a refrain of “Prime time keeps ticking” — its cleverest moment by a good ten steps — Prime Time kicks off one of the most confusing records you will ever hear. Every song a rip-off of Dre/Snoop West Coast hip-hop (from the Florida-born “rapper”), it veers from homoerotic boasts (”Cause a brother like me is sitting on something fat”) to imagistic poetry as written by a dumb child (”The sun has now been taken prisoner/ By the moon the nightfall is cold/ Bumpity bump bump”) to, well, this:

As I fly the skies
And swim the seas
As I crawl through the land
Primetime is who I be
Free like a bee to a tree
So I talked to myself and told myself,
“Tell me how does it feel
To be me.”
It really isn’t that easy.
Me, myself and I
Me plays football, myself plays baseball and I rhyme
Number 24 minus number 21 equals three
Individuals divided into one

Or this:

Three to the two to the one
And it’s Deion stepping on the peon
(To his ladies) Have you seen one?
(Ladies answer) No we haven’t Deion.
Cool. So everything’s straight.

Or this:

No I’m not a phony man
You can ride a pony, and
If you’re really horny then we want you on the Sony cam

Deion has so much to say that Prime Time not only totals a whopping 68 minutes — with ZERO skits — but it was reissued seven years later as The Encore Remix, apparently because it was the only thing that could make his 2002 failed Oakland Raiders comeback look good.

“Produced” by Dallas Austin and Too Short — an atrocity that should sentence them both to a lifetime of Bryant “Big Country” Reeves remixes — Prime Time confronts the ennui of stardom head-on, particularly in regards to how jealous you — yes you — are of him. Songs like “Y U NV ME” (Why you envy me, get it?) are direct, confrontational and idiotic, but album single — you read that right — “Must Be the Money” reveals a darker side. Sanders recounts all the great things that happen to him, chanting after each: “Must be the money!” with a bravado that suggests maybe he isn’t listening to himself all that closely. Best part: “Women always coming/ Must be the money!” Oh yeah. He knows what time it is.

As you might expect, Deion talks quite a bit about his athletic career, often in deeply emotional tones. In “Papa San,” an ode to his father, he raps:

If it’s a crime I guess I’m doing my time
Because the time without my pops is the time I find
Myself crying, lying in my room alone
Hoping that I hear his voice when I pick up the telephone
So when I hit my chest twice and point to the sky
I hit this home run for you, big guy

Deion Sanders’ career home run total: 39. Sorry, dad?

Or check out how responsible he is. Say whattup, Jerry Jones!

Pulled out my Rolex to check the time
Damn I’m late
Call a limo so I can go to the Stadium
Michael Irvin called so we must be playing

And don’t think that just because he went to Florida State that he skipped his modernist poetry classes. Not at all.

So I jumps in the shower
And let the water rain
Drippy drip

And:

Roll ya’ll, we can stroll, ya’ll
Strikky strikkity strikky strikky stroll

One of Prime Time’s great strengths is the pervasiveness of its emotional themes. These are, in order: 1) Deion Sanders loathes you for being poor and not a sports star; 2) You loathe Deion Sanders back for having the temerity to think this is worth listening to; and 3) An overwhelming sense of pity for the hype men who have to bark back at him things like “Heidy heidy hey/ Heidy Heidy ho/ Mr. Prime Time I know you wanna go/ Gonna kick a funky rhyme/ YO.” Hopefully they at least got a commemorative fedora out of it.

In the end, however, Mr. Prime Time acquits himself nicely by digging deep for a literary reference to kick “House of Prime” over the top. Can you spot it?

Straw wooden or brick
It really doesn’t matter
Because the rhymes are thicker
Than your peanut butter

And it just keeps going from there. If you can stand it, give it a spin for yourself here. Best of luck!