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December 31, 2009

‘Blakroc’ collaboration deserving of follow-up

Blakroc: ‘Blakroc’

Rating: B

For New Year’s Eve the lady and I were supposed to go to Chicago to see The Black Keys, but I sold our tickets at the last minute because I didn’t feel like traveling and decided to save some money.

While I’m sure everyone finds this glimpse into my personal life fascinating — “Tell us, Jeremiah, what did you have for breakfast this morning?” — I only mention it to illustrate a point: If I missed Mos Def, Raekwon or Jim Jones rapping live over Black Keys instrumentals, I’d likely regret the decision.

Blakroc came about because Roc-a-Fella co-founder Def Jam apparently loves the Keys’ scuzzy, minimal take on the blues and conceived the idea of paring the Akron, Ohio-based blues rock duo with rappers for a hip-hop album — thus Blakroc. “Blakroc” is certainly not revolutionarily, but considering most pairings of rock and rap are about as palatable as urine in your soft drink, the fact that it’s good is at least notable.

The cockiness of the opening track “Coochie,” which features Ludacris and an old verse, obviously, from ODB, is surprising and welcome, immediately erasing any doubts of this being a self-conscious novelty album. The Keys quickly establish a sound — minimal with big, live drums and ominous guitar riffs — that the kind of rappers chosen for the album — Raekwon, Mos Def, RZA — obviously find palatable, considering they rap over similar beats for their own albums.

“On the Vista,” a two-minute and change psychedelic track that Mos Def nails with his slack-jawed flow actually sounds like an outtake from Def’s excellent 2009 album “The Ecstatic.” Mos Def also mumble-sings the hook on “Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo),” the album’s best song, while Jim Jones proves he’s severely underrated as he raps over a mean, simmering rock song that sounds like its roots stretch back to the Great Depression.

The album’s most glaring weakness is that its vision of hip-hop is very narrow, so that the songs that aren’t great tend to be very boring.

But there’s enough good here to warrant a follow-up — maybe an album-length collaboration with Mos Def is in order — and to hope that no hip-hop stars show up for the Black Keys’ New Year’s Eve show.



Clipse: ‘Til the Casket Drops’

Rating: C

A friend told me that in a year or so, when “Til the Casket Drops” has time to settle and it’s freed from expectations, I’ll look back on it more fondly. But I think it will still be obvious that it falls far short of the Thornton brothers’ last two albums, “Lord Willin’” and “Hell Hath No Fury” — both of which were instant classics if not commercial successes.

The problem with “Casket” isn’t that it’s a more obvious grope for the mainstream — although the awful Keri Hilson duet “All Eyes on Me” obviously is — but that it lacks the confident single-mindedness of even Clipse’s mixtapes.

This could be because Clipse exhausted the cocaine-rap genre, draining it of anything menacing or meaningful, and are now faced with trying to find a new niche and topic even as the future of hip hop is unclear.

It’s not as if Clipse will ever make ringtone rap and compete with Soulja Boy, but why would they want to continue in a genre whose biggest appeal is its danger when it’s now fast becoming old-fashioned and toothless? The Clipse are self-aware enough to realize this, and while they still drop plenty of great songs about slinging coke, it sounds like doubt has crept in, and it’s hard to match the swagger of the genre when your self-confidence about continuing in it isn’t 100 percent.

But as a transitional album, “Casket” is decent. This is the first time the Neptunes haven’t produced every track, and if that means a lack of sonic cohesion, new producers Sean C & LV and DJ Khali and Chin offer some of the album’s strongest tracks.

Overall, however, the album feels unfocused. Part of the fault lies with the Neptunes, whose beats lack the snarling simplicity and inventiveness of the production team’s work on “Hell Hath No Fury.” But while Clipse’s talent for rapping is intact, they too appear to lack the sense of purpose that animated the group's best work.

Maybe “Casket” will eventually become Pusha and Malice’s mid-career crisis album, and they’ll emerge on the other side of it renewed. If so, I could find myself looking back on it more fondly.

Best tracks: “Popular Demand (Popeyes),” “There Was a Murder” and “Freedom.”



Address correspondence to Jeremiah Tucker, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802.

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