THE SLAP REPORT
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Fatgums/Bambu: A Peaceful Riot
Those familiar with this site will rightfully see the review of A Peaceful Riot as a significant departure from the usual mix of electro/trunk slabs, so before I launch into the ensuing rant, let me say that there’s something a little different about this album. Those who know me, know of my passionate and deep-rooted hate for self-righteous conscious hip hopper backpack bullshit, which might’ve been tight back in 1994, but has since been co-opted by pseudo-intellectual suburbanites. All too often in the ‘underground’ is lyrical content replaced for musical quality, as if ‘real hip hop’ is somehow the only form of music that can exist in a vacuum as exempt from balancing the principles upon which it was founded. I’m tired of fools making lackluster hip hop, and then shirking criticism on the basis of the claim that you’re simply too commercial and fake to understand ‘real hip hop culture’. That’s fat girl logic, an analogy that I need not expound upon any further. Now what’s most refreshing about A Peaceful Riot is that it fights against these stereotypes. From start to finish, the production is intensely musical. The rapping is conscious and lyrical, but not granola. You can hustle and be about your money, like clothes, guns, and fighting, and be down with the cause. One doesn’t exclude the other, which is the reality for people in the hood really living it. This line from “Good Clothes” pretty much sums it up: “how you expect me to look, wristbands, and linen pants, and a hand full of books. Flip-flops on my foot, liquorish stick in my teeth, or maybe bundle me in mismatched colorful bed sheets.”
Slaps
Hardest slap: Gunslinger I
Release date: April 25, 2009
Label: Beatrock
BY THE MIXSHOW COMMANDER
Game reckanize game in a bang bang. Great review!
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