The old adage “better late than never” certainly applies to former Def Jam Recordings hip-hop group 3rd Bass, who recently announced their reunion after years of bad blood. The public tension primarily lived between MC Serch and Pete Nice, but they were miraculously able to bury the proverbial hatchet to perform at DJ Cassidy’s “Pass the Mic” event on November 8, leaving classic hip-hop fans in a state of shock.
After all, it seemed impossible that the duo would ever share a stage again; the rift was that deep. But legendary New York City hip-hop promoter Van Silk, a force in his own right, presented Nice with a proposition: if he could get Scorpio and Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five back together with estranged member Rahiem then Nice would have to make peace with Serch.
On August 11, 2023—widely recognized as hip-hop’s 50th anniversary—Rahiem, Scorpio, Melle Mel, MC Shan, and Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Flavor Flav performed together during Van Silk’s celebratory park jam at Mill Pond Park in the Bronx. Now, it was MC Serch and Pete Nice’s turn.
“That was basically my ultimatum,” Nice tells SPIN. “We were in talks to possibly do something over a year ago that just all fell through. There were several opportunities for this to actually happen. They just never came to fruition because of timing. The last part was to get DJ Daddy Rich [previously DJ Richie Rich] to do it and he agreed.”
“I feel like this has been the right time for us,” Serch adds. “The Def Jam vinyl [rerelease] of The Cactus Album [on November 22] and DJ Cassidy concert, all around the true 35th anniversary of the release of the album. Everything just felt like it was the right time to move forward.
“When we tell fans about the reunion, the look on their faces…the honest excitement and jubilation about us being together again and planning the tour; the way the fans have reacted have made it really
worthwhile.”
The timing was indeed serendipitous. New York City hip-hop staple DJ Clark Kent had died on October 24 and his peers rallied to pay their respects.
“Van worked his magic,” Nice explains. “For as much as I was doing it for the sake of doing it, I was really stepping over the line to do it, but Van really wanted us to do it ‘for hip-hop’ and also for the fact that this is what he does—promotes. In the middle of this, DJ Clark Kent passes.
“That’s why Richie was in town, so we were able to all meet together at the venue. That was an even tougher situation than me because Richie was really at odds with Serch just as much, if not more. We were just able to let bygones be bygones and that’s the only way that this could be done—blanket style.”
3rd Bass saw significant success in the late ’80s and early ’90s with the release of The Cactus Album (1989) and Derelicts of Dialect (1991)—both certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). But in 1992, shortly after finishing a tour with Cypress Hill and dropping the theme song for the film Gladiator, they broke up over “personal and creative differences” and a growing disdain for the road. Years of mud-slinging would follow and their hatred for each other seemed to only intensify.
It all came to a head in 2019, when Serch appeared on an episode of Lord Sear’s Shade 45 radio show, prompting Nice to call in. As he attempted to debunk some of Serch’s claims about 3rd Bass’s career, Serch hopped in with, “Hey yo Pete, let me ask you a question you fucking piece of shit.” Needless to say, it was all downhill from there. Nice pressed him for essentially taking credit for inspiring Rakim to finish the 1988 Eric B. & Rakim masterpiece, Follow the Leader, called him a “pathological liar,” the “Trump of hip-hop,” a “fraud” and the “biggest dick rider in history.”
“I never came out and said anything first,” Nice says. “I would have DJ Vlad contact me multiple times to go on his show and I didn’t want to go on just to have to talk about Serch, so I just declined everything and took the high road.
“When the whole thing happened with Lord Sear, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I was like, ‘Fuck that.’ I told Sear if he’s on and he’s trying to save face, have me on after and I’ll tell you the real story. That’s when we ended up on at the exact same time and had that whole shit show interview, which is a classic.”
But backstage at the Prudential Center for the “Pass the Mic” event, Serch and Nice were filmed officially unblocking each other on social media, a symbolic gesture signaling a new chapter for the duo. With the trifecta of MC Serch, Pete Nice, and DJ Daddy Rich complete, 3rd Bass is planning an expansive North American tour, something Nice suggests they could have done decades ago.
“We could have been out there for the past 15, 20 years making a lot of money,” he says. “3rd Bass is the living example of the Chappelle’s Show skit ‘When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong.’ That is us. We disliked each other, had problems with each other to such an extent that we just let everything go.”
Details on the forthcoming tour have yet to be disclosed. If it does end up happening, MC Serch and Pete Nice could easily just show up, perform, and go their separate ways with minimal contact involved.
“We both live in different parts of the country and doing different things aside from this,” he says. “‘Pass the Mic’ was the first time we were in person and talked to each other in years. We had a couple of cool little conversations. We were waiting to go on stage and Melle Mel and Scorpio were right next to us.
“Scorpio overheard our conversation and he called me next morning just to say how happy he was to see us back together. Scorpio was a part of this too, because he spoke to me about it, urging me to do it. Scorpio and Melle Mel…there wouldn’t even be hip-hop as we know it if it wasn’t for them.”
3rd Bass may have taken decades to get to this place, but their reunion is “better late than never.” The Cactus Album turned 35 this year and inadvertently celebrates the life of the late MF DOOM, who was introduced to a mainstream audience as Zev Love X on the Prince Paul-produced track “The Gas Face.” The exalted MC died unexpectedly in October 2020 at just 49 years old. Without 3rd Bass, the world may have never known him.
However, The Cactus Album’s primary producer, Sam Sever, isn’t exactly celebrating the reunion, although Nice insisted he wasn’t “against” it. In a since-deleted Instagram post, Sever suggested he still harbored some resentments that wouldn’t allow him to participate in the group’s reconciliation, adding even more mystery to the complicated tale of 3rd Bass.
Whatever the case, Nice still has to focus on his job as co-curator for The Hip Hop Museum (formerly known as the Universal Hip Hop Museum), which is a massive undertaking. And while he feels that the 3rd Bass legacy has been somewhat tarnished due to all of the internal issues, he’s confident in what they contributed to the culture.
“We were definitely groundbreaking in terms of being an integrated rap group,” he says. “I think we broke some of the racial barriers that helped some other artists like Eminem. He said in different interviews that we were an influence. Also, I am a fan and student of hip-hop. I’ve always wanted to go out of my way to give credit to all the people before us who really created it.
“Collecting and preserving the actual history is way more important than what we did as a group. But being 3rd Bass gave us the platform to get there. I’m in a position now to tell the story of people like Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash and really shine a light on everything that they did to create this billion-dollar industry. Although a lot of people have exploited hip-hop, we never did—we respected it.”