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The wondrous character rapper Serengeti is a study in the disparity between the real life a rapper lives and that of his escapist fantasy. Where David Cohn breaks rank is that his alter ego is not a badass version of himself à la Slim Shady or Bobby Digital, but merely a happy husband in his 40s named Kenny who loves sports, Brian Dennehy, and O’Douls. His records as Kenny (Dennehy, this year’s Kenny Dennis EP and There’s a Situation on the Homefront as Kenny’s pseudo-crew Tha Grimm Teachaz) are markedly better than his still-strong product as himself (Family and Friends, Noticeably Negro) if less colorfully inspired. On C.A.R., Cohn finds a loophole to get one of those rad concepts out of just that: a depressive who longs for suburban utopia — he even utters “I want a simple life” once. Over a half-hour he rides a Greyhound alone, loses a girl he kept promising to take dancing, and laments kids with colds and sinks with mold. A slice of “Geti Life” is lying to a girl that he’ll introduce her to the marginally more famous guy from Why? to keep her interested. That’s his world.
