| The Next Step | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by People Under the Stairs | ||||
| Released | March 23, 1998 | |||
| Recorded | 1997-1998 | |||
| Genre | hip hop | |||
| Length | 72:09 | |||
| Label | PUTS Records | |||
| Producer | Thes One, Double K | |||
| People Under the Stairs chronology | ||||
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The Next Step is the debut album by the People Under the Stairs. After forming and performing their first few shows, in 1998 Thes One's student loan funds were used to release their first 12-inch, entitled "The Next Step pt. 2". 250 copies were pressed, until the stamper at the pressing plant broke, and then 200 more copies were made from a different master without the secret bonus track Live At The Fishbucket which on the first-run appears on the b-side. In the late summer of 1998 the group independently released their first album, entitled The Next Step, which Thes One produced and engineered in its entirety.
That same year, just weeks after the 12-inch was released, the shopkeeper of the now-defunct Mr. Bongo record shop purchased a large number of copies of it for his shop. When he played it on an ordinary day in the store, customers rushed the counter and it sold out within 7 minutes. Seeing the demand, the shopkeeper called Chris Smith, owner of Om Records in San Francisco, and urged him to get in contact with People Under The Stairs. Initially, Smith contacted the group regarding a one-song deal for the Om's compilation albums Deep Concentration and Mushroom Jazz, but upon hearing more material offered the group a 4-album deal.
People Under The Stairs signed with Om Records in 1999 and headed off on their first world tour in late summer of the same year, initially as support for the Deep Concentration project but later that year in Europe as a Solo Act with local openers.
The track "The Next Step II" is featured in the video game Tony Hawk's Underground.