Key to the Kuffs, JJ DOOM, 2012, :42
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
No idea what this was before I played it. DOOM is apparently a British-American hip-hop artist working with a producer with the initials JJ, thus the name. Cut and chopped soundbites from cartoons and noir films mix with cryptic, absurd, intelligent lyrics. There's the usual self-glorification, but with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and mumbled name-dropping of superheroes, Gundam robots, Thomas the Tank Engine, and lots of other pop culture touchstones. Not to mention Eyjafjallajökull, an Icelandic volcano, somehow. DOOM definitely touches on topics that, in my limited experience with rap, aren't typical; "Wash Your Hands" is a germaphobic rant that has some significance for today : "I'm just sayin', wash ya hands fam / Before ya put your nasty thumbs in the underpants, damn / You like the way she shake her back area / It's like a sex machine that make bacteria." Plus an attack on Frankenfoods and a desire, born of being stuck in the UK, of seeing people with more melanin. Also: "Watch DOOM's laser graze you / More worse than Occam's razor / Not to interrupt / But anybody else notice time speeding up?" Favorite tracks: "Guv'nor," "Banished."
No idea what this was before I played it. DOOM is apparently a British-American hip-hop artist working with a producer with the initials JJ, thus the name. Cut and chopped soundbites from cartoons and noir films mix with cryptic, absurd, intelligent lyrics. There's the usual self-glorification, but with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and mumbled name-dropping of superheroes, Gundam robots, Thomas the Tank Engine, and lots of other pop culture touchstones. Not to mention Eyjafjallajökull, an Icelandic volcano, somehow. DOOM definitely touches on topics that, in my limited experience with rap, aren't typical; "Wash Your Hands" is a germaphobic rant that has some significance for today : "I'm just sayin', wash ya hands fam / Before ya put your nasty thumbs in the underpants, damn / You like the way she shake her back area / It's like a sex machine that make bacteria." Plus an attack on Frankenfoods and a desire, born of being stuck in the UK, of seeing people with more melanin. Also: "Watch DOOM's laser graze you / More worse than Occam's razor / Not to interrupt / But anybody else notice time speeding up?" Favorite tracks: "Guv'nor," "Banished."
