Kentucky fried finger lickin’!
Rap and hip hop isn’t usually an area that we at Room Thirteen spent a lot of time chilling back and listening to, however there are enough decent acts that deserve a certain recognition, and within this are these three guys from Kentucky called, quite cunningly, CunninLynguists, which according to rap magazine XXL is the ‘Most Hated Name In Rap’…
Firstly I must take little time to thank the record label for sending me a promo that they have cleverly split into 99 tracks, thus making it somewhat awkward to review! Anyways, never one to shy away from a challenge here we go…
These Southern ol’ boys produce a laid back hip hop style a little like a mixture of Tribe Called Quest with Nas. First song, ‘Valley Of Death’ is a typical laidback number with keyboard samples and clean chunky drum beats, the sort that I always love in hip hop. Lyrically they are slightly more dark, expressing their political and real life views, showing that they aren’t all about boasting and name calling. Album title song, ‘Dirty Aces’ is another well produced song name dropping the likes of Ice Cube, it has slightly more street lyrics, as does, ‘K.K.K.Y.’ which has a nice melody of tinkling keyboard keys, whilst the flow is slightly more like Blaze from the Insane Clown Posse’s Psychopathic Records fame.
Mixing it up slightly, CunninLynguits, has the almost obligatory sexual song in ‘Wonderful’ which is a very LL Cool J cut from the laid back flow right up to the soul singing R’n’B chorus. It’s cleverly done with more innuendos and soft words rather than raw and coarse sexual lyrics. ‘Yellow Lines’ and ‘The Park’ follow on nicely with a more summertime feel to them, that you want to play these guys when pigeon-holers want to describe rap as being angry and sexual whilst promoting violence and abuse. This isn’t to say that the content is for kids, but instead of swearing for no reason, Deacon The Villain, Kno and Natti use their lyrical skills to wax descriptively and poetically in a way that when they do swear you hardly even notice.
‘Summers Gone’ is another track that bridges the chilled summer tunes with the harder hitting hip hop beats, before that stonker of an interlude that is, ‘They Call Me’ which is a short intro of chilled acoustic rock very reminiscent of The Rolling Stones with ‘Sympathy For The Devil’, leading us then into ‘Gun’ that has acoustic guitar samples and rapping very much like Jay-Z.
There is something a little haunting about, ‘Dance For Me’ which has me thinking of Dark Lotus, the ‘super group’ made up of the member of Insane Clown Posse, Twiztid, Blaze Ya Dead Homie, and Marz with their brand of very dark and morbid lyrics. Things then turn to country/blues in the nice tune of, ‘Georgia’, “Glass houses made outta empty coke bottles // Throwing rocks at statues of Southern role models” go the lyrics, which speak of racism and slavery in a very emotionally poignant and heartfelt song. It leaves you numb at the things that have gone on in history, and not that long ago…
‘Things I Dream’ has a chorus that sounds a little like a monk is singing R’n’B, no really…whilst I cannot tell you how impressed I am at the sound of a glockenspiel that appears in the chorus of, ‘Mexico’, even if the rest of the song is decidedly non-Latino, which considering the other musical styles here from blues, rock, country and electro, this really wouldn’t have taken much more effort!
Rap and hip hop get a lot of bad press manly due to the fact that there are a lot of different people doing it, and therefore there is a lot of crap rap out there. However if you take the time to sift through you will find quite a few acts that are truly great and do bring something new to the musical world. CunninLynguists are one of these. Each member has a great flow to their voice, and the lyrical content is well thought out, and not hashed together words that are only added because they rhyme. The samples are nice and varied and all have big hard beats that you feel that a lot of effort has gone into the production, so as they are not one of these acts that spew out backbeats that sound like they came from a computer game or a keyboards demo, then boast a few lines about how great they are, and then really rub salt in my wounds by turning up on MTV Cribs showing off their mansions and fast cars…please don’t get me started…
So with the album, ‘Dirty Aces’ which is the band’s fourth by the way, you won’t hear many references to bitches, glocks, bling, 40’s and keepin’ it real, so if that’s you thing then go some place else. This is straight from the heart hip hop with brains and beats. Made up of a preachers son, a Caucasian from Georgia and a convicted felon it almost sounds like the beginning to a joke, but these guys are the real deal. Great stuff!