Throwback Thursdays: Midi Maxi & Efti “Bad Bad Boys”

Words by Eddie STATS Houghton

I got serviced with copies of Midi, Maxi & Efti’s albums and singles (there were 3) back when I was briefly the “reggae director” (and by “director” I mean: “only DJ who played”) at college station WRCT FM Pittsburgh in the mid-90s. I really don’t remember the first time I saw the video. In fact, the most visceral memory that this song brings up is of me and DJ Selecta AKA The White Knight staying up til 5am in the WRCT record library, playing “Bad Bad Boys,” MM&E’s other jam “Ragga Steady” and one particular track by Aisha Kandisha’s Jarring Effects which had a completely wrong-tempo sample that went: “Fr-fr-fresh from Marra-ke-ke-kech” over and over again until we literally could not breathe from laughing so hard.

Beyond that, it is going to be hard to know where to attack my breakdown of “Bad Bad Boys,”  because there is actually nothing that I don’t love about this video. I love the fact that the titular boys are so bad they had to say it twice. I love the fact that they’re not warning bad boys ala Inner Circle but saying “come with me.” (Are they going to get spanked? What’s going to happen??) I love the fact that they are singjaying like they are in an opium-induced trance and I love the way they say “uh-huh’ with all the disaffection of a bored porn starlet. I love the vaguely orientalist inflection of the midi-keyboard reggae groove in the track –which fully works with the off-tempo rhyme stylings in a punky, Shonen Knife kind of way. I love the fact that they rhyme “don’t be negative” with “just be positive.” I love the fact that plugs 1 and 2 are unashamedly repping their kemetic peach-fuzz girlstaches like badass nubian Frida Kahlos. I love the fact that plug 1 is named Midi and has a twin sister named Maxi and I think I’m definitely a little bit in love with Efti.

In researching this post, I was a little bit disappointed to find out that MM&E came out of Sweden–rather than the Netherlands, as I remembered–because in my mindgarden I had created a whole backstory that involved them being “discovered” in the red light district of Amsterdam by the proprietors of a chain of hash-cafes who kept them thoroughly sedated on some form of herbal roofies throughout the label signing process (which would explain their whole style of chat). But on the other hand I love the fact that the Afro-reggae beats are actually made by the Swedish cornballs behind Army Of Lovers and the fact that all three girls were refugees of civil war and political oppression in Ethiopia/Eritrea who escaped to Scandinavia to make this record (talk about being on a goddamn JOURNEY).

Obviously I’m not the only one who has recognized the piquant, addictive genius of Midi, Maxi & Efti over the years. They have been featured on Beavis & Butthead (who are watching a different cut of the video, apparently) and a couple different movies–notably the Christian Slater/Marisa Tomei vehicle Untamed Heart (thought the filmmakers wisely went with “Tom’s Diner’ for the trailer). But the fact that I have to share the girls with others does not in any way alter the special place that this video takes me to. In fact, if you are still breathing OK, I recommend you also watch “Ragga Steady,” (below). Let’s Go!