(originally posted on Facebook)
Is the point of rap to talk about yourself as if you're a total badass? If so, I wonder if the guys who are creating these albums ever considered how dated they would sound in the future. This is especially true of those released in the early 90s. How quickly did calling someone a "fool" or calling yourself the "dopest" become not just cliche but laughably ironic? That and I think the first track on this album features sound effects that also appeared in the theme to The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. Oh dear, I'm only 3 minutes into this album and I've already written as much as a typically write for one of these stupid reviews.
So I'm listening to "Mic Contract" and I'm thinking to myself, "This sounds like it would be a fun song to play and arrange. It's got a great baseline and silly little guitar riff, plus a horn section that plays once and a while during the breakdown sections." Then I slapped my head realizing all those parts are samples from other songs on a loop. I guess I'm supposed to remark on how clever the producers were in chopping up those bits of audio and pasting them together, but I'd be more impressed if they had chopped it up in their heads first, written a piece of music, arranged a band and played it live for the album. Then to get the sound they were looking for they could do some actual production work like a real artist. I don't know... it just seems more legitimate that way.
If I thought I could stomach listening to a large amount of rap music, I'd be curious to study how much of rap consists of rapping about rapping. To be fair, a lot of rock music talks about rocking. But when Queen says, "WE WILL ROCK YOU!" what follows is a rocking guitar solo. What can a rap artist do after boasting about freestylin' and flowing rhymes? More rapping? Meh... I guess in the 90s it might still be OK to do a breakdown and dance, though I doubt Ice-T is that kind of rapper.
Ouch, there's a song on here called "New Jack Hustler". You know, black people can take a lot of credit for bringing rock, funk, and hip-hop into the mainstream, and have deep roots in jazz and R&B. I wonder if New Jack might be the one genre craze they try to disown.
OK, so on a couple of the rap albums I've heard thus far they do like these radio play things where it's two guys having a faux casual conversation. It's so forced and contrived that the mystique of these guys being badasses is lost, because I know they're not on a street corner or in a bar. They're in the controlled environment of a studio booth with headphones on and speaking into a microphone. They might not even be in the same room.
Also, if you're going to pump up the next song by claiming it needs a "crazy-stupid-fly-slammin' beat" please do anything other than sampling the iconic drum intro from "When The Levee Breaks". In it's original form it's one of the most powerful rock drum recordings in history, turning a relatively simple blues number into a sprawling epic. Ice-T shits all over Bonham's grave by not only looping just the intro, which is the most minimilist of the explosive recording, but buries it under layers of shitty cliched rap instrumentals. There was no attempt made to blend the tracks together, which makes the modern instrumentals stand out and the iconic drum track sound muffled and distorted. It's as if Ice-T and his producers have no clue why John Bonham's drumming in "Levee" became iconic in the first place and assume it's all about the beat.
Oh for Christ's sake... I still have 10 songs to go on this? You know, up until that I didn't really like the album but it wasn't making me really angry. Now I'm angry and know this is a 1-star album in my book, yet I know it's wrong to stop just over halfway through.
I guess Ice-T has a thrash band that he fronts, and they make their first appearance on this album. The major difference between the rap music and this song, "Body Count" is the song is played live by an actual band and Ice-T screams the lyrics. Well, I know I'm a proponent of having actual musicians play on an album, but "Body Count" is by far the worst song on the album. Yes, rap sucks and there's a ton of that shit on this 71 minute "epic". At the bare minimum those songs are polished turds, and sound like somewhere along the line someone with talent was involved in creating them. The band playing "Body Count" is shockingly awful by comparison.
Finally, it's kinda funny hearing Ice-T say "Fuck the police!" after watching him on Law & Order for twelve years. And I get it, because all police officers are corrupt and convicted fellons deserve shoutouts because they're all innocent. Or something... I'm actually not sure if that's what he meant when he said slavery is dead except for convicted fellons.
Whatever. 1 star.
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