It is an odd time (footnote 1) in hip hop history; the era of the hustler which dominated the hip hop ethos for so many years led by Jay Z is pretty much dead. (footnote 2)  If anything, the current state of hip hop is dominated by the eccentric rappers and the borderline emo self psychoanalyzing rappers. The biggest rapper of the past 5 years Lil Wayne might occasionally spit gangster and hustler tales or write love songs to the ladies, but more than anything else he is defined by his constant proclamations of being a Martian and the sheer joy he takes in rhyming weird and random shit together.  Other big names like Kanye West and Drake write lyrics that are closer in theme to Rivers Cuomo from Weezer than Snoop and Dre with their constant self analyzing and discussing both the hedonistic pleasures of fame but also how those pleasures leave the unfulfilled in the long run. (footnote 3) These trends of the eccentric self reflecting rappers rapper got even more pronounced in 2011. Two of the most buzzed about albums this past year have been Lil B’s “I m Gay’ and Tyler The Creators’ “Goblin”. Both Lil B and Tyler are oddballs compared to most the other rappers in hip hop history. Now the question remains, are these odd ball rappers albums any good? Well, here are the album reviews.

Album Review Goblin by Tyler The Creator:  Overall Grade B+

Goblin opens with the title track where we get Tyler talking to a psychiatrist; this little motif is very similar to stuff Eminem did on the Slim Shady Lp and in many ways Tyler’s Goblin with all its complaints about his parents, attempts to shock with his gruesome lyrics, and attacks on main stream pop and hip hop stars (footnote 4) is an update on The Slim Shady Lp.  Lead single Yonkers which has a killer beat features all of those motifs at their best like his attack  on B.O.B.’s singles with the lines “What you think of Haley Williams? Fuck Her Wolf Haley robbin, I’ll crash that fucking plane that the faggat nigger Bon is in- and stab Bruno Mars in his Goddamn esophagus-and won’t stop till the cops come in” (Footnote 4)

At this point I have to mention the controversy from Tyler lyrics which can be interpreted as misogynistic, homophobic, anti-religion, and offensive to a myriad of other groups. I would argue that those who get offended by the lyrics are barking up the wrong tree. The overall theme of Tyler’s album is nihilism. He is trying to piss people off and say the most offensive shit possible just for the sake of pissing people off and saying the most offensive shit possible because his and the Odd Future crew’s general philosophy is fuck everything. While one could argue that there are listeners who might misinterpret lines like “I am not homophobic, faggots” or “I am stabbing every blogging faggot with a pitchfork (footnote 5) in a way that actually is promoting homophobia and violence against gay people, I would argue that many people can misinterpret many different kinds of art and use it to justify awful shit. Tyler the Creator is playing a sociopathic character on this album in the same way Eminem plays a sociopathic character of Slim Shady. If people are not smart enough to understand that Tyler and Eminem are not actually sociopaths, but are playing a character much in the same way Anthony Hopkins is playing Hannibal Lector in Silence of The Lambs than that is a problem in our education system and not the music lyrics.  Now back to the actual music.

One of the underrated strong suits of Tyler and the Odd Future crew is the production. The song Sandwitches features a great horn section backdrop that is reminiscent of Pharrell Williams style of production. The track “She” which tells of story of Tyler creepily pining for a girl next door and fantasizing about sneaking into her room features smooth production and vocals from odd Future member Frank Ocean. The song ends with the hilarious motif of Tyler acknowledging his creepiness even while yearning for the courage to ask the girl on the date with the lines “I just want to talk and conversate-cause I usually just stalk you and masturbate-and I finally got the courage to ask you on a date-so please just say yes-let the future fall into place-cunt.” (Footnote 6) Another stand out track is “Radicals.” (Footnote 7) Radicals is a 7 minute over the top opus with Tyler and the crew ranting about fathers not paying child support and refrains like “fuck your traditions and fuck your religions” and “kill people-burn shit-fuck school.”

The music world and the world in general needs nihilists who sometimes just say fuck it all. The underlying message and theme of the Goblin albums is fuck everything. The message is delivered with good productions and twisted sociopathic funny lyrics throughout. When you are in a fuck everything mood, this is the album to put on. Overall Grade B+

Album Review: I’m Gay by Lil B             Overall Grade B-

Lil B used to be a member of the Southern California  hip hop hipster group The Pack (footnote 8). After the group dissolved and Lil B went solo, he gained a cult following with his prolific amount of free song downloads he released as well as his constant tweeting as well as his general wacked out haphazard themes and lyrics on songs like  “Wonton Soup” and Miley Cyrus. (footnote 9) More recently, he has been the topic of controversy after announcing he was going to name his new album “I’m Gay.” (footnote 10) Well, he recently released the album to itunes followed by tweeting a link to his followers who do not have 10 dollars to download it for free. How is the album?

            I’m Gay is in interesting album. It stays away from of Lil B’s past lyrical themes and for lack of a better phrase goes the “conscious rapper” route and raps a lot of commentary about society’s ills. The production on the album is great. Every song is listenable with soul style beats that are kind of similar to what Kanye does sometimes. On the track “Open Thunder Eternal Slumber “ he raps about how people can’t find jobs, how those working 9-5 still can’t pay the bills, and how he and many are living in their computers. The track “I hate myself” is both a personal lament and discuss how the media can make black people have a negative view of themselves. There is a lot to like, on this album, but there is one major flaw that is holding it back.

            Lil B is technically not a very good rapper. The best rappers switch up their flows and rhymes schemes to their songs for various effects and affect. Lil B does not do this. He almost always uses a similar flow and very simplistic rhyme schemes. No one is going to confuse any of his lyrics with those of Jay Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Das Racist, Lupe et. al. His lack of skills makes the album a little monotonous at times which really hurts his overall cause. If Lil B eventually can step his game up (Footnote 11) , he might be able to make a great album. But for now, “I’m Gay” is just an average one. Overall Grade B-

Footnote 1: Not surprisingly the number 1 new crew this year is Odd Future or Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All if you want to say their entire name.

Footnote 2: Jay’s song Death of Autotune which attacked hip hop hipsters with lines “you’re jeans too tight, you’re colors too bright, you’re voice too light” more than anything else was kind of acknowledgement from Jay Z that the new generations of rappers do not have his hustler philosophy and while it was a really good song with a killer horn sample, it still kind of sounded in the vein of a Grandpa Simpson “in my day” type of rant.

Footnote 3: Examples are Kanye’s lines like “my friend showed me pictures of his kids, all I could show him was pictures of my cribs” or Drake lines like “I wish I wasn’t famous, I wish I was still in school, so that I could have you in my dorm room.” Hell Drake first major label single “over” pretty much was his questioning his life with the refrain of the chorus “what em I doing? What em I doing?”

Footnote 4: part of Tyler’s disdain for those 2 B.O.B. singles “Airplanes” and “Nothing on You” (which I admittedly like) is that they were both created assembly line style by Atlantic records. The label bough the chorus from Bruno Mars and then had different rappers try out making a song around the chorus until they found the best version. If you don’t believe me, here is the original version of “Nothing on You” done by Lupe Fiasco:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOedT_pLZqg

Footnote 5: The pitchfork line is a pun mocking the  well known hipster website Pitchfork. Ironically, Pitchfork actually has promoted Tyler a lot and is getting protested by various groups for allowing Tyler to perform at the Pitchfork Music Festival.

Footnote 6: This also similar to Rivers Coumo’s lyrics on Weezer’s Pinkerton album where he talks about sneaking into a girls room to read her diary and other mildly stalking like behavior.

Footnote 7: That song begins with a “Random disclaimer” saying “don’t do anything I say in these songs, they are fiction, if anything happens don’t blame me, fuck Bill O’Reilly” It should be noted that again this disclaimer is very similar to Eminem’s skits on The Marshal Mathers Lp and the way they say “Random Disclaimer” is kind of an reference to the Nickelodeon teen show iCarly which features the characters saying “random _____” during the web show.

Footnote 8: There biggest hit Vans was dedicated to the shoes of the same name: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fR2OgGbKds

Footnote 9: Wonton Soup link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m5CIcbytfM Miley Cyrus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFjQNWhboJ4

Footnote 10: in interview Lil B states that he is heterosexual but wanted to name his album that as a way to show love to the gay and lesbian communities and to reappropriate the word. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/24/lil-bs-im-gay-album-title-death-threats_n_852994.html

Footnote 11: Improving ones rap skills is not impossible. Just listen to Lil Wayne’s album 500 Degreez and compare that to what he has done the last half dozen years.