DJ Quik and Kurupt | BlaQKout

Mad Science (2009)
By RICHARD BECK  |  June 15, 2009
4.0 4.0 Stars

090619_qK-Main
LA hip-hop has two threads, and DJ Quik pulls both of them. The first is g-funk, a production style that relies on deep, open grooves and an endless parade of funk samples. The second is West Coast backpacker rap, which is what happens when guys with enormous vocabularies smoke a lot of weed.

The fact that Quik has inhabited both worlds for two decades is a pretty nifty trick: he can go "out there" without disappearing completely, and he can talk about problems in the ghetto without sounding as if he lived at the Gap. On BlaQKout, his collaboration with the Philadelphia/LA MC Kurupt, his sonics range far and wide.

"Do You Know" has a glamorous sweep that suggests something like wise retrospection, and it leads right into "Watcha Wan Do," which could be the funky soundtrack to a Zelda game. Eventually, there's "9X Outta 10," which sounds as if somebody had handed turntables to the Terminator. This one has Kurupt rapping as if he were hypnotized — "It's gonna start again where it started at/Ended up, and restart again." It all might seem like preamble when you finally get to "Jupiter's Critic and the Mind of Mars," which may be the weirdest slice of rap genius since "A Milli."

Quik has some of Prince's little-guy arrogance, and here it's nearly schizoid: "It's character, you miss it?/It's America, you visit?/Did you get on a boat without a ticket?" Uh, yes? What? This makes him sound crazier than he actually is, though. Quik knows what he's doing. You can hear it on every track of this symphonic mini-masterpiece.
Related: Review: The Roots of Hip-Hop, P.O.S. | Never Better, Beef stakes, More more >
  Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Hip-Hop and Rap, Music,  More more >
| More

Most Popular
Blogs
 More: Phlog  |  Music  |  Film  |  Books  |  Politics  |  Media  |  Election '08  |  Free Speech  |  All Blogs
ARTICLES BY RICHARD BECK
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   PLUCK AND DETERMINATION  |  March 09, 2010
    People have always thought that Joanna Newsom was indulgent. At first, it was about her voice — the kind of nasal yelp that usually keeps a performer from getting on stage at all. Then, on her second album, it was about her vocabulary and her instrumentation.
  •   SONG OF HERSELF  |  August 05, 2009
    "Listen, I will go on record saying I love Feist, I love Neko Case. I love that music. But that shit's easy listening for the twentysomethings. It fucking is. It's not hard to listen to any of that stuff."
  •   DJ QUIK AND KURUPT | BLAQKOUT  |  June 15, 2009
    LA hip-hop has two threads, and DJ Quik pulls both of them. The first is g-funk, a production style that relies on deep, open grooves and an endless parade of funk samples.
  •   FLIPPER | LOVE  |  May 26, 2009
    Flipper formed in San Francisco in 1979, and they're remembered three decades later because of a song called "Sex Bomb" that's one of the funniest pieces of music I've ever heard.
  •   ST. VINCENT'S ACTOR GETS A RUN-THROUGH  |  May 26, 2009
    There were not one but two clarinets on stage at the Somerville Theatre on Tuesday night, and that gives you some idea of how intricate Annie Clark's chamber-pop compositions can be.

 See all articles by: RICHARD BECK

LATEST SLIDESHOWS

All Slideshows