isbell@athena.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell) (06/20/91)
What up, Hotel?
I'm livin' hard but large.
Another review from the hardest working reviewer in the business.
This time: _Breaking Atoms_ by Main Source
Next time: _OG Original Gangster_ by Ice-T
_The Valley of the Jeep Beets_ by Terminator X
and...
_To The Extreme_ by Vanilla Ice (no, really)
Catch Ups: _Seminar_ by Sir MixALot
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Distinctiveness: Middlin'
Dopeness Rating: Okay. The dope stuff and the non-dope stuff cancel each
other out.
Rap Part: Lyrically? Dope. This man is a good lyricist.
Voice wise? He just doesn't work--at least not with the
sounds he places on the tracks.
Sounds: Sometimes it's very good in a De La/Jungle Brothers sorta
way, but given the rapper's voice, these sounds are much,
much too sparse.
Message: Not much of one.
Tracks: 45 minutes says the clock, with twelve tracks
Profanity: On maybe two tracks. Let grandma listen to all but
those two.
Main Source is the Large Professor, Sir Scratch and K-cut. I am depressed
about not liking this album. I have to place Main Source with the Jungle
Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest as groups that do nothing for me for
no real reason. I just don't get it. The only real problem I have with
this album is Large Professor's voice, but one can used to that enough
after a while to get into the rest of it. After all, I got used to
Professor X's "Sissssssseeeeeeeeee!" But I just can't get into this.
I'm sorry. I was supposed to review this weeks ago, but I kept putting
it off, hoping that I'd like it after listening to it for a while (it's
happened before). It didn't work.
Geez, I feel bad. I mean, I actually enjoyed dissin' MC Mallet and
I'm sure I'll have fun destroying Vanilla Ice Cream Cone, but I
don't feel that way about Main Source.
We begin with "Snake Eyes." This one starts off fairly well and I
like the music. I even like the lyrics, but I just can't stand
the voice. Furthermore, he's going too slowly for the tempo.
Or something. I dunno.
"I see people rollin' dice with lives
tellin lies and cuttin' folks like knives."
"Just Hangin' Out" is a track I can grab onto: It's too slow and
too sparse for Large Professor's vocals. Y'know, I understand that
not only does the Large Professor write all this stuff, but he
writes good stuff for a lot of other rappers. He clearly has
talent, and in fact the lyrics are really originally done, I think,
but I'd say he belongs behind the pen, not the mic.
"I'm mainly known for the rough raps
but kids steal my lyrics like hubcaps
and eat 'em like stacks of flapjacks
like rugrats."
"Loookin' At The Front Door" is the current single off this album and
the group's first release. I went ahead and tried the CD after hearing
this track. The sounds are typical of the CD and the lyrical skill is
actually a bit below the norm; however, he hides his vocal ickiness
well. I don't see how he did it here, but couldn't do it on the
rest of the album. It's probably because he's supposed to be angry
on this track and his voice fits that attitude.
"You don't like the fact that I'm me.
I don't put on a show when it's time for you to have company.
And your friends don't understand your choice of man.
They speak proper while my speech is from a garbage can."
Ahhh, next we hit a faster track with "Large Professor." We get a few
scratches here and there and the thump is a bit more pronouced.
It almost gets there, but no. "Just A Friendly Game of Baseball"
comes much closer. These are well-thought out lyrics, placing the
cops and the street kids in a friendly game of baseball; however, the
sounds are too sparse, again, for the Large Professor. Furthermore,
he seems to force the words into the tempo and it doesn't work for
me.
"Awww, sh*t, another young Brother hit
I better go over my man's crib and get the pump
'Cause to the cops shootin' Brothers is like playin' baseball
And they're never in a slump."
"F*ck red sox, I'm wearing Black socks.
But let 'em shoot a person from the White sox?
What's the call? Foul Ball!"
"RBI--Real Bad Injury
But don't get happy, you're in jail for a century."
This track about captures all the profanity on the album, so you can
turn the volume up again.
"Scratch & Kut" is the next offering. As you might suspect, this is an
instrumental offering. It's not horrible or anything, but it's fairly
null and void as there just nothing to it.
"Peace Is Not The Word To Play" works, mainly I think because the sounds
aren't so sparse and Large Professor's voice is vibrated some of the
time.
"Peace! Yo, piece of what?
You can't mean p e a c e
'cause I see people on the streets
shoot the next man that turns around and says peace."
"Vamos A Rapiar" is "We are going to rap" in the Spanish. Whatever.
Once again, Large Professor's voice grates on me as I listen to it.
This is only a little less true of "He Got So Much Soul (He Don't Need
No Music)." The sounds are pretty interesting here, but we still
have the same problems.
"I've had soul since I was negative three months old
When it came to gettin' down I was bold.
Kickin' steps till you had to put my ass in a choke hold.
And damn near wouldn't fold."
Main Source gets a bit funkier with "Live At The Barbecue."
"Verbal Assasian, my architect pleases
When I was twelve, I went to hell for snuffin' Jesus."
Hmmmm. Yes, well. This is a bit rougher, but since there are guest rappers,
the voices come off a bit better here for me. Naturally, I don't like
much of anything else about the song. Oh, well, maybe it's just me.
"Watch Roger Do His Thing" and a bonus remix of "Just A Friendly Game of
Basbell (Bonus version for our friends in A Tribe Called Quest)" round
out the album. The lyrics on "Roger" are okay and the sounds a pretty
damn nice. Still, _ibid_.
Well, I can't recommend this. If you like A Tribe Called Quest-like
stuff, find a copy and listen to it. If you don't like Tribe but like,
say, Brand Nubian's style, see if you can't get past his vocals. You might
like it. If you have a CD player, I'll sell you my CD.
Otherwise, you can pass this one up. Sorry Large Professor. Maybe next time.
But that's just one Black man's opinion--what's yours?
Peace.
"Black music is in, Black culture is in,
but Black _people_ will never be in."
-Kyle Baker, Why I Hate Saturn
--
Don't just adopt opinions, | \ / | Charles Lee Isbell
develop them. | \/ | Homeboy from hell, living axiom and
------------------------------| /\ | anonymous absolute ruler of the cosmos
MIT has no opinions to adopt. | / \ | isbell@athena.mit.edu, isbell@ai.mit.edu