"Many Facez" by Tracey Lee: 20 Years Later

1997 will be remembered as the year that saw the release of the Notorious B.I.G’s  double album “Life After Death”  on March 25, mere weeks after he was murdered.  A few months later the Wu-Tang Clan dropped their double LP “Wu-Tang Forever” on June 3.  Sandwiched in-between those two releases was a debut album from an up & coming emcee who hailed from Philadelphia and who made a name for himself in Washington, DC while attending Howard University.  Powered by the hit single “The Theme: It’s Party Time” and featuring the last recorded verse from Biggie while he was still alive, “Many Facez” by Tracey Lee is celebrating twenty years since its release in 1997.

Now what’s interesting about this album is those of us who were involved in its creation cannot quite pin down the exact date of its release.  Sure if you do a search for it in Google, it comes up as March 25, 1997, but keep in mind this album dropped at a time before Google was really a thing, of indexing history and the internet as we know it today.  Plus this is the same date that Big’s album dropped.  I personally do not recall picking up “Many Facez” on the same date that I picked up Big’s album.  Quick story: I used to road manage Tracey, and we were out on the road somewhere in the United States, and earlier in the day on March 24th we were at a Mom & Pop record store at a strip mall type location.  The owners told us that they would open up at midnight to start selling Big’s album, and we definitely planned to return later that evening so that we could pick up Big’s album as we continued on our promo run (special R.I.P. to the one and only Garnett Reid who took us out everywhere on the road).  When we returned later that evening, I remember picking up Big’s album, but not Tracey’s. We surely would have grabbed multiple copies of each had both been available for sale.  

Marley Marl & Tracey Lee outside of Hot 97 in NYC

I do remember that the record label, Bystorm/Universal originally planned to release Many Facez on March 25.  There was a belief that record buyers who went to pick up Biggie’s album, would also pick up Tracey’s album.  Speaking for myself I never thought that was a wise idea, and my recollection, thankfully, was that at the 11th hour a decision was made to delay the album by about 2 weeks, making the new release date April 8, 1997.  This is the date I remember, and oddly enough if you look up Mancy Facez on Amazon, April 8 is what comes up as the original release date.  Plus its chart history over on Billboard.com indicates that it debuted two weeks after “Life After Death” instead of debuting the same week.  It’s a fascinating, small controversy that Tracey and I have good banter over!

As far as the album goes, “Many Facez” was a concept album showcasing the different sides of Tracey, or the many faces.  They were, L, Rock, LR, Tray, and Mr. Lee.  These personalities allowed Tracey to be versatile in his song making using wih different flows, different rhyme patterns, and different styles; it all just depended on which face he was wearing.  Back then we probably did not articulate this concept as well as we could have, but as the album gets older I appreciate it more and more.  Listen to the album today, and you will see what I mean.  

Yours Truly, Pharohe Monch, Tracey Lee & DJ Parlay

One of the areas of “Many Facez” where this was evident was in the sequencing of having the song “Repent” appear before “Give It Up Baby” the second commercial single released from the album.  “Repent” was an LR record, and it was as far away from being a commercial record as there could be as exemplified by the hook, “don’t you hate n-ggas who make records for b-tches?”, yet this record was followed by its antithesis “Give It Up Baby” featuring Tray, the ladies man, a record that was made to have commercial appeal and get spins on the radio.  This was purposeful sequencing and one of the ways the concept of “Many Faces” was meant to come to life.  

My favorite record on the album hands down is “Stars in the East” featuring another one of HU’s finest in One Step Beyond (Kenyaflow, MID, and John Doh representing the Bronx, Newark, and Philly respectively).  The Jones Girls “Nights over Egypt” sample alone makes this a classic record, and Tracey in the L persona trade verses with Kenyaflow and MID was nothing short of magical.  This song could still be released TODAY and it would be a smash, it’s that good!

Biggie, D-Dot, Yours Truly, and Tracey Lee

“Keep Your Hands High” will always be special, because this is the last record that Biggie did a verse on while he was still alive.  Recorded at D&D studios, Biggie and Tracey traded verses as if they had been rhyming together for years, and I could not help but think that this would be the first of many collaborations between the two of them, since the head of Tracey’s label, Mark Pitts was also Biggie’s manager.  A few weeks later in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997, Fate would have other plans as Big was murdered shortly after leaving a party that we had also attended.  When it came time for “Many Facez” to drop, we were unable to use Biggie’s name on the sticker that would showcase songs and features on the album.  I didn’t even know that sort of thing required permission.  Live and learn.  

Of course I can’t talk about this album without talking about the hit single “The Theme: It’s Party Time”.  Catchy, infectious, a roof raiser, or party starter you name it THIS record was the SHYT in ‘96-’97 when it was out and can still get the party going today.  DJ Red Alert was the first DJ to play it on his show in NYC in November of ‘96.  Before we knew it, we were on a plane to Atlanta in January the following year performing at a party in honor of Nas’ second album going double platinum, and I just remember seeing the whole club raising the roof as the song was performed and singing “It’s party time...Whoa It’s Party Time”.  It was at this point I knew Tracey had something special.  This was twenty years ago, and it seems like only yesterday.  

So I want to send a special shout out to my friend, and my brother Tracey Lee as we celebrate the 20 year anniversary of his debut album, “Many Facez”, an album that took us all over the country and allowed us to see things we could only dream of.  You made a helluva debut album, and I can’t wait to reminisce about this over the course of the next twenty years!

If you want to purchase “Many Facez” or any other album in Tracey’s discography head over to http://traceyleemusic.com/