Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince - Code Red

Album Facts Original Release Date: October 12, 1993 US Soundscan Sales: 316, 000+ #64 Billboard 200 #39 Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums Boom! Shake the Room The third rap track to reach no. 1 in the UK Was a worldwide smash going to number 1 all around the world #13 Billboard Hot 100 #21 Hot R&B/Hip Hop Singles I'm Looking for the One(to be with me) #93 Billboard Hot 100 #70 Hot R&B/Hip Hop Singles #18 Hot Rap Singles #24 UK Singles Chart I Wanna Rock #37 Hot Rap Singles Can't Wait To Be With You #29 UK Singles Chart Twinkle Twinkle #62 UK Singles Chart

Tracklisting

• Somethin' Like Dis
• I'm Looking for the One (to be with Me)
• Boom! Shake the Room
• Can't Wait to be with You
• Twinkle Twinkle (I'm Not a Star)
• Code Red
• Shadow Dreams
• Just Kickin' It
• Ain't No Place Like Home
• I Wanna Rock
• Scream
• Boom! Shake the Room (Street Remix)

Album Reviews

All Music Guide

3 stars out of 5

After years of proclaiming that he wouldn't do gangsta rap, The Fresh Prince finally succumbs to a harder-edged style on Code Red. And, surprisingly, he pulls it off well, thanks to sharp production and his endearing personality.

-- Stephen Thomas Erlewine

DON'T DISS 'EM JAZZY JEFF, FRESH PRINCE GET HOT DISC REVIEW

By Sabrina Miller / St. Petersburg Times

Break out the sirens: ``Code Red'' is a blazing hot disc, filled with clever lyrics, driving beats and liquid silk grooves. Hard to believe it was spawned from hip-hop's cotton candy duo, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, eh?
They probably can't believe it, either. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince started to break free of their fluffiness with ``Homebase,'' which contained the smooth hit ``Summertime.'' But the Grammy Award-winning duo completely sheds the ``soft'' label without resorting to the misogynist tactics of gangsta rappers with ``Code Red,'' which is refreshing, fast-paced and contains scarcely a weak track. Just about the only weak track is the one they've released as a single, the laughable ``Boom! Shake the Room.'' Clever samples from the Bar-Kays, Luther Vandross, the S.O.S. Band and Doug E. Fresh create lush, catchy beats in songs like ``Can't Wait to Be With You'' (featuring Christopher Williams) and ``Ain't No Place Like Home.'' Will Smith (Fresh Prince) and Jeff Townes (Jazzy Jeff) are the most marketable rap duo since Kid 'N Play. Smith's sitcom, ``The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,'' has outlasted Kid 'N Play's Saturday morning cartoon, and Townes' commercials for Starter are becoming legend. They take a lighthearted crack at the cost of fame in ``Twinkle Twinkle (I'm Not a Star),'' getting the message across that they're still homeboys from west Philly. With ``Code Red'' they will make you forget they ever made songs like ``Parents Just Don't Understand'' and ``I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson.''

Q Magazine

DJ Jazzy Jeff/The Fresh Prince

Aiming their cheerfully chirpy radio-friendly raps at everyone from the crack house to the frat house, Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince stake a larger than life claim to a style of populist rap which rejects the crass and violently negative stereotypes of hip hop mythology. I'm Looking For The One and Can't Wait To Be With You are solid lovelorn raps, while Twinkle Twinkle serves up dry and salient observations on the double-edged sword of celebrity against a zinging melodic backbeat. The hip hop fires of dance frenzy are stoked up to a sweaty maximum on I Wanna Rock and a ferocious street remix of Boom! Shake The Room, which leaves its chart-dwelling cousin trembling in the corner.

- Paul Davies

(Issue #88)(January 1994)