DJ Premier rambling heartfelt, intelligent thoughts as an intro? Blaow. Your album is pretty much automatically certified to have a certain true school aesthetic, auto-tune be damned. Anyone who’s been listening to rap long enough should instinctively travel that path of rhythmic thinking. Torae? Marco Polo? Double Barrel? What caliber of music are you aiming at me? And how much (positive or negative) permanent damage will it have will it have on my head? *puts on headphones*… *CLICK* (a.k.a. ‘play’)…
Shot one is the title track, where DJ Revolution appears, and continues to slice apart vinyl like a motherf*cking psychotic Shogun Assassin, humbly remaining one of the most slept-on turntablists on earth. Dicing vocal samples by Method Man, M.O.P., Onyx between Torae’s hardcore street hop proclamations equals nothing less than that classic boom-bap standard rap music. If you want it, here it is, just like the FIRST Christopher Martin that Jay-Z should be calling told you suckers it would be. If you want that fluffy Kid Cudi shit, go to the moon, where Premier told you to go to live. Planet Hip Hop is built on bone-bruising beats and knuckle-scuffing rhymes, like this album delivers thoroughly.
Clean, crisp, and sinister 4-bar loops with multi-layered keys, rich and robust basslines and the occasional creative countermelody provide the foundation of these fourteen tracks, each one of them a worthy graduate of the school of Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Diamond D and Large Professor. Marco Polo sure done good for a quiet cat from Richmond Hill, Toronto, Ontario.
And the Rakim to his Eric B., newcomer Torae, definitely steps into the MC arena with his fists swinging. But honestly, a bit more time in the gym wouldn’t have hurt, especially for a relatively anticipated event like this. Duck Down Records still deserves much credit and great respect for investing this much time and energy into the next generation of hip hop artists. Although he’s not rewriting the book of quotable lyricism on Double Barrel, what Torae lacks in cunning wit, he compensates with his confident presence and a stable, rhythmic cadence that some people will find perfectly satisfactory.
His hardcore east coast steez is crystallized and carved to its sharpest peak on the cinematic gunshot “Coney Island”. If the album captured more colorful cold world criminology like this, instead of the shadowboxing wack MCs material that it primarily consists of, it would shoot much deeper into the collective hip hop head.
Evidence of the validity of this constructive criticism is exposed before the album clip is empty. His word association games on “Word Play” attempt to dispel the assumption of his conceptual limitations, but it woefully doesn’t convince. Numerous lyrical faux pas make regrettable appearances here, and the most critical bitter cynics in modern hip hop might pick this apart for fodder in their daily hate regurgitations.
And now for something completely different: the following, is Africans-in-Babylon existence on record: “nigga, I’m a native New Yorker/ Coney Island made me the greatest of authors, the greatest shit talkers/… y’all niggas gassed by ‘The Warriors’/ well, there ain’t no Cyrus here/ niggas do crime, ain’t no sirens there/ niggas do time and don’t nobody care/ how we gonna cry? That’s a known sign of fear…” It’s damn near depressing how he chooses to end the blistering banger, but it’s as real is life is. “Coney Island” is, as the kids say, dat piff. (Oh yeah, they stopped saying that when Dipset started decomposing. Shit is still ill.)
He also throws this out there elsewhere on the album: “news folks say blame the recession/ but I say blame BET, no question/ ballin’ ass videos will have a nigga stressin’/ then they got ‘American Gangster’ giving ‘em lessons how to do it…” Extrapolating on that thought would have brought some interesting and insightful results, but he doesn’t. Those are the most hardcore songs of all: the truth. Torae needs to share the truth as he sees it more often.
I digress. Frankly, the double-edged sword of going with an early 90’s template for your album in 2009 is: dually reinforcing the culture’s (crumbling?) core, while simultaneously suffering from the effect of the law of diminishing returns. I mean, it’s great to hear a Lil’ Fame and Rock guest appearance on a beat not consciously calculated to beg for perpetual radio/videoplay (“Smoke), but how much different is the track than many others in their collective catalogues? A little more risk wouldn’t hurt the affair, but it’s nothing to hate on to anyone who will listen.
And when Guilty Simpson says “come get it/ habitual track killer/ spazz on beats and smack up rap niggas”, you believe him way more than you doubt him. Even more than Torae, what he’s missing in wit, he’s over-delivering in “I’ll whip yo’ ass for talkin’ dumb shit”-ness. His Detroit pedigree represents lovely, though, his verse on “Stomp” being one of the highlights of the album.
“But Wait” is fun for those who have been listening to rap since Jam Master Jay introduced the atakuvdabaldhedz on us, but… there’s a certain je ne sais quoi missing from the total impact you might anticipate from a jam centered on a classic Sticky Fingaz sample. They could have made this song more of an anthem with a more focused approach.
Speaking of, Masta Ace can waver between being inspired and going through the motions in the same verse, and will still impress and please the ear. He’s got at least one necessary album left in him, and I hope it comes kinda soon. And alongside Sean Price on “Hold Up?” Damn. Whatever P does next will possibly be his best work to date, as well as some of the best rap NYC will offer this year. Can I gamble that much on Kimbo Price? I will. But this guy jumped the gun, saying “the pistol is chrome/ the handle: pearl gray/ when I pop Kings I kill ‘em, I’m James Earl Ray”. Damn, homie. What would Obama say?
In the grand scheme of things: conceptually and ultimately, not much new ground is broken here. But alternately, and equally importantly, they carry on certain hip hop traditions faithfully, yet in their own signature way, (which has a necessary place in these crazy, Soulja Boy/stanky-legg-tainted times, word to GURU). When the year is done, this will essentially be thought of at as one of the more satisfying offerings of east coast rap music in 2009. Then of course, some people will say the same thing about Wale’s debut. Different nose, different coke, I guess. Whatever blows your mind.
I know some heads will feel absolutely assassinated by awesomeness listening to this album. Me? Guess I’m Tyler Durden.
“I got a bridge out in Brooklyn to sell to you/ cause you’re cool with being bamboozled…”
More hollow-tip shots like that next time, Torae. Load that into the cannons Marco Polo is blasting his boom-bap beat bombs out of and you might hit the bull’s-eye.
72/100
“Coney Island”
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“Crashing Down”
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“Double Barrel”
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Related posts:
- Torae & Marco Polo Set to Release Double Barrel
- Marco Polo + Torae: Hold Up (feat. Sean Price + Masta Ace)
- Marco Polo & Torae: Armed & Dangerous Mix CD
- DJ Critical Hype: Marco Polo Blends [Mixtape]
- Marco Polo: Making Beats
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