In the triumvirate of Haiku D'Etat, they say Myka 9 is jazz, Abstract Rude is soul, and Aceyalone is poetry. The other two show up frequently on this album, but poetry dominates. The instrumentation is appropriate to an open-mic or spoken word jam: lots of upright bass, not too in-your-face drums. Very much a slam type of vibe, much more so than say, Quest's "Low End Theory." Aceyalone's lyrical performance is continuously astounding. Even on the more traditionally hip-hop tracks he continually seems to forget he is rhyming, letting fly some non-sequitor like he forgot the beat is there - then wrapping it back together into the rhyme structure in a craftily purposeful way. And it always sounds very organic. The first few tracks are pretty much hip hop, then it ventures closer to spoken word territory in the middle with a lot of extended riffs on circuses and things. A couple love songs are included, like the weird "Annalillia?" about a girl who rejects him at the bar, then later reveals that she's married with kids. Nothing ever happens. Then there's "Makeba," where he reminisces on an old love and gets a little sidetracked again "we'd have kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, after kid, damn that's a lotta kids." For the last few tracks the reverb and delay is turned way up for extra spookiness. You'd think a refrain like "make way for the glory of the b-boy kingdom" would be uplifting and anthemic, but it's almost dark and creepy, with the verses making the chorus extremely ironic, with their references to the power struggle and oppression. Overall this is probably the strongest solo album from a Freestyle Fellowship member and I couldn't recommend it highly enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment