History lesson - MC Paul Barman, Paullelujah! (2002)

Quirky and clever - erudite juvenalia

Working in the cube-farms of corporate America in 2002, pleasures were hard to come by and distraction was a blessing. I don’t even know where I first came across “Cock Mobster”, but I do remember being gobsmacked. It wasn’t the crudity of the juvenile humor as MC Paul Barman checked off women from his fantasy black book ; it was the mix of cultural references and wicked sharp rhymes. Name checking The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and KRS-One’s “Rappaz R.N. Dainja” in the same verse blew my mind. The combination of audacity and rolling rhymes in lines like “My dandy voice makes the most anti-choice granny’s panties moist” was staggering.

Immediately looking for more, I bought Paullelujah! directly from his web site. Then I found out that Prince Paul (De La Soul) and MF DOOM had produced some of the tracks. It wasn’t until a year or two later that I realized that Barman had provided the brief, but inspired interlude “Meet Cleofis Randolph the Patriarch” for Deltron 3030 (2000). Paullelujah! showed that his quirky delivery and the satisfying linguistic gymnastics were no fluke; the album was packed with more of the same thing that grabbed me in the first place: scatological humor aimed at a 14-year-old audience blended with superior lyrics and a crazy quilt of cultural allusions. Without a doubt, it was a flawed, uneven collection, but I had to respect Barman’s talent as a wordsmith and unbridled creative force.

The opening seconds of Paullelujah! immediately overturn the usual rap stereotypes. Instead of swagger and a heavy beat, Barman drops any pretense of cool and gleefully proclaims, “Check it out, man. It’s the best day of my life! The MC Paul Barman full-length is finally out,” over Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”, which he shortly hijacks and repurposes to hype the album title. It’s the first of many goofy moments and it does make it harder to take him seriously as a hip hop artist. But what should we expect? A white Jewish kid who graduated from Brown University is hardly likely to pull off a gangsta pose. Instead, Barman follows the age-old advice to write what he knows and that includes everything from literature he picked up in school to the uncomfortable contradictions of self-righteously liberal middle class politics. And mostly being a smartass. So, he skewers the local anarchist bookstore scene after name-checking John Cage and Jeff Koons in “Excuse You” and it’s all of one fabric.

When confronted with the question of cultural appropriation that faces every middle class, Caucasian rapper, Barman has his own unique response. On “Old Paul,” he tackles it head on, first asking “Is it ‘cause I go for the laugh?/ Because I’m not from the Ave? Because I target the fans that you wish you didn’t have?”. It’s a cogent point, hitting at hip hop’s discomfort with white popularity. But he follows up with some soul searching: “Had I made a mockery of a culture, like the Choco Taco?/ Was I to rap as France was to Morocco?/ Was I colon rap colon colon France colon Morocco?” Those lines do it all. They capture humor, racial guilt, a desire to be sensitive and also his geeky self-expression, breaking down the analogy to the format of an SAT question.

Paullelujah! is full of Easter eggs like this. He also manages to shoehorn in palindromes and incorporate a Buckminster Fuller song into “Bleeding Brain Grow”. If anything, Barman is a bit too eager to prove how clever he can be. He is sharp, but he often sacrifices meaning to satisfy a lyrical formula or he’ll drop into lowbrow humor to get a cheap laugh. This gives the album a weird kind of dynamic balance. His twisty rhyming passages demand a lot of attention and often trigger a sense that you know there’s a joke in there somewhere if you can take the time to unfold them. Then, about the time he’s worn you down enough to surrender to his multisyllabic onslaught, he throws a change up like “Burping & Farting.” To some extent, that makes Paullelujah! a novelty album, but it’s one that still stands the test of time; a dozen years after my first listen and I just caught the math mnemonic reference in “PEM Das EFX” from “Excuse You”.

(This review first appeared in Spectrum Culture)

July Singles

July Singles

Time again for the monthly singles post. Here are a few things that blipped my radar this month, starting with one of my Seattle faves, Macklemore.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - Wings

Photo credit: Greg Nissen

Macklemore is one of my favorite performers because his front and attitude balance perfectly with his earnest delivery. This makes him very entertaining, but his material is always solid. Search my blog for album and show reviews.

In recent years, the rapper has teamed up with producer/DJ Ryan Lewis. Lewis has been integral to polishing Macklemore's sound by creating musical accompaniments that extend the songs. His pacing on Wings is great. The simple, soulful piano sets up Macklemore's open delivery. Then the music builds tension as the vocals pick up intensity. Later, Lewis' strings evoke the emotions without getting schmaltzy.

The theme is a familiar one for Macklemore: a heartfelt connection to his something of his youth and his ambivalence between how the kid sees that thing and his grownup response. In this case, it's the Air Jordans that fueled his dreams and the baggage around them:

Look at me, look at me, I'm a cool kid
I'm an individual, yeah, but I'm part of a movement
A movement to only be a consumer, and I consumed it
They told me to just do it, I listened to what that Swoosh said

The lyrical flow shifts tempo and ranges from sentimental to indignant. Regardless of whether he connects with your youth, Wings sets you up for a big shot of empathy.

Cymbals Eat Guitars - Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name) (Lenses Alien, due out August 30)

On 2009's Why There Are Mountains, Cymbals Eat Guitars proved adept at merging Pavement style rock with Wilco style experimental production (review here). Rifle Eyesight (Proper Name) continues to deliver on this idea, setting up a medley effect.

The long track (eight and a half minutes) bounces through several modes but maintains coherence. The first section ties some angular Pavement guitar lines to a poppier indie rock groove. This transitions into a drifting interlude on a sea of chaos. Somewhere along the line, the chaotic noise engulfs the track, somewhere between psychedelia and experimentalism. Rifle Eyesight recovers with some jangled guitar lines to take us back to the indie rock roots. The song ends in a modern psychedelic haze.

Despite the length, Rifle Eyesight stays engaging and interesting. If this is representative, Lenses Alien should be an epic listen.

Veronica Falls - Come On Over (Veronica Falls, due out October 17)

With layers of low-fi simplicity, Veronica Falls creates a wall of sound like Phil Spector producing the Velvet Underground. Their shoegaze friendly song moves from comfortable to cheerfully excited, like spending a lazy afternoon with a lover and then getting a wild hair: adventure's afoot.

Come On Over is anchored in repetition, but the lack of lyrical depth creates an emotional conduit and evokes a happily reminiscent feel. All with a toe tapping beat. It works for me. Even after it's over, the mood and melody linger.

Veronica Falls has more tricks in their bag. Earlier singles Found Love In a Graveyard and Beachy Head offer their own flavors of shoegazy garage, hinting at darker brooding and surf sensibility. October's not too long to wait to see what else Veronica Falls has to offer.

CD review - Theophilus London, Lovers Holiday (2011)

Theophilus London's game seems to be more about style and attitude than the music itself. Of course, that's a fine strategy when you're aiming for pop stardom. London first generated interest with his underground mixtapes. Now, with his finger on the pop pulse, his latest EP, Lovers Holiday is the lead up to an eventual full length release this spring. The EP's 5 songs are all tied to the topic of love, which fits the Feb 14 release date.

Lovers Holiday is a demo style EP, intended to give a sense of London's range. The songs are primarily pop, but each one varies the flavor. London's default vocal approach is a lightly melodic rap technique that owes a bit to Kid Cudi. No single track jumps out as amazing, but they're all fairly interesting.

The EP leads off with Why Even Try, featuring Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara. Her part doesn't give her much room to assert her personality, though. The music is a sparse, dance club funk, reduced to to a beat a simple bass line, and chiming synth accents. The chorus fills out the sound a little more. "If you think you're special, you're probably not." The irony is that Theophilus London's whole existence is a refutation of this song's defeatist message. Despite the lyrical resignation, the song sounds catchy and upbeat.

The music slides smoothly into Strange Love, whose strong pop vibe channels Prince, minus The Artist's squealing vocals. London's slightly out of breath delivery provides a forced edge.

Girls, Girls $ has a Kid Cudi feel. The samples and fills are heavily layered, with plenty of mildly glitched parts. This serves as the sex track for the EP. The music feels like more a DJ mix than a basic recorded groove. London lays down a decent flow, but he rushes his lines to add excitement. This contrasts strongly with the more restrained Wine and Chocolate, which follows. That's recalls Prince, too, but the style is a melange of R&B, pop funk, and synth pop. The electronic touches make this my favorite track on Lovers Holiday.


The album wraps up with Flying Overseas, which contrasts a rap verse and an R&B, soulful chorus. The stripped down, moody, slowed groove sounds a little like MIA on the verses, but the sweet chorus vocals give the song a little more depth.

Theophilus London is trying find the perfect balance to achieve stardom. The elements are falling into place: dance oriented grooves, vocals that tease between rapping and singing, and a whirlpool of pop music stylings. At the same time, his image management is spot on for generating the requisite hype. A little more polish and a hint of artistic depth and he should be well on his way.

CD review - Street Sweeper Social Club, The Ghetto Blaster EP

Tom Morello and Boots Riley built Street Sweeper Social Club out of a brief collaboration during a Billy Bragg tour. All three artists share a left wing, progressive political mindset, so there's fertile common ground for Morello and Riley to explore. Tom Morello is best known for his work with the rap/metal band, Rage Against the Machine, while Boots Riley is the lead vocalist for the rap act, The Coup.

It's not that much of a stretch for these two artists to get together, but they've created a strong follow up to their earlier self-titled debut. The Ghetto Blaster EP lays out a mere seven songs, including a couple of high profile covers: M.I.A.'s Paper Planes and LL Cool J's Mama Said Knock You Out. Seven tracks, but no fluff.

The title cut, Ghetto Blaster, hits hard with a hard rock guitar riff and rocking drums. This has a Red Hot Chili Peppers' sound of hard rock/soul/funk, like Give It Away. It's a solid start, with a fast rap vocal flow on the verses:

I'm from the land of the free labor that planted the plan of the
Black and branded to scram it over to Canada
A fan of radical bandits in bandannas
Who slam in the banana clip and rat-a-tat-tatata

The frantic drive carries the tune.

This yields to the funk rap of Everythang. Riley's group The Coup released a version of this on Party Music with more of an electronic backing groove, but Morello's guitar work is stripped down to the perfect accompaniment. The real story here, though is the incredible drum work: the driving syncopation, stretched beats, and tight breaks.

The big single from The Ghetto Blaster EP is a cover of M.I.A.'s Paper Planes. The original has a bouncy ska feel over a sample of the Clash's Straight To Hell. M.I.A. contrasts a cynical, mercenary lyric with her pretty and mild delivery. SSSC takes a simpler approach: the music is edgier with a faster tempo and Riley's voice is all gangster. They've also changed the lyrics fairly extensively to shift the message of the song. Now, it's less about being a dealer and more about surviving the system: "Everyone's a winner, now we're making that fame" becomes "Dog food for dinner, the world is in flames". Comparing it to the original is what makes this version so interesting.

The New Fuck You has high intensity intro before settling into a repetitive funk rock groove straight from Living Color. The lyrics are political social commentary:

Take care is the new healthcare
Big business get welfare
The middle east is the new gold rush
We've made a new hell there

My favorite track is Scars (Hold That Pose). It also has a driving hard rock start reminiscent of Living Color, but the verse drops is down with Riley giving us an MC 900 Jesus style flow over a cool, trickle down guitar riff. The chorus kicks in with serious crunch to balance out the mellower verses. The total effect builds a tension through the course of the song. The verse lyrics are self-deprecating about being broke and cheap:

This old ripped jacket is cause I am an artist
I'll burn rubber on you if my car gets started
3rd month avoiding landlords is the hardest
It's only funny cause you don't see where the scar is

The chorus and bridge pull the humor back into social commentary.

Mama Said Knock You Out is a modern updating of the LL Cool J classic. It stays fairly true to the original, but owes a lot to Public Enemy and Rage Against the Machine. It's hard rocking, with some heavy guitar from Tom Morello and a monster bass line. Fitting a modern style, the mix is a lot punchier than the original.

Finally, Promenade (Guitar Fury Mix) revisits a song from Street Sweeper Social Club's debut. The mix might be slightly different, but this is effectively the same as the radio edit version.

Rage Against the Machine has been working this beat between rap and hard rock for a long time, but Boots Riley's vocal style adds a lot more rap veritas to the mix. This differentiates Street Sweeper Social Club from Zack de la Rocha and Rage Against the Machine, while keeping the political message. Philosophically, the right drink is grapes of wrath, but today I'd suggest a coffee flavored stout (fair trade, of course) for the right mix of energy and bitterness.

CD review - Kidd Russell, Backyard Heroes (2010)

Kidd Russell is a relentless self-promoter. He's out there hyping his music, acting as his own publicist. Like any good salesman, he believes in his product, which seems especially sincere as he avoids any false modesty. His latest project, Backyard Heroes, is a scattershot collection of pieces. There are several nice moments and some good flow, but it lacks some coherency. In this time of singles, that may not matter as much.

Mostly, it's a party album, with a mix of rap and singing that remind me of Sugar Ray or maybe a bit like Smashmouth. This vibe covers the recent video single, E North Ave to the love tribute of She Feels Like Home. There are side trips from the basic groove -- the MC 900 Ft Jesus feel of Legendary and the heavy message of Dear Shooter.

Dear Shooter is the strongest song here. It's an anti-violence rap, starting with a gangbanger's young victim and progressing to a soldier with the enemy in his sights. This chain of examples is anchored with a poignant chorus:

I wrote you this letter the other night
For you to read before you take my life
My life, my life
Gotta get this off my chest
Before your bullet ends my breath
My breath, dead shooter

Focused on creating empathy between victim and perpetrator, it's a powerful approach. The lyrical flow is smooth, with well chosen backing music.

Kidd Russell has a good ear for music and laying out some catchy flow. I'd like to hear more stylistic focus, but Backyard Heroes is well worth checking out. Raise a tallboy to the band.