BLUFOOT – THE ABLUTION (SCENARIO)
May 4th, 2005 by duck
Producer Blufoot’s LP has a cast list which reads like a who’s who of upcoming UK MC’s, featuring Yungun, Joker Starr, Mic Assasin, and Mystro amongst others across seventeen tracks (well, less a few skits and freestyles, but then this is a hip hop record). So far, so good.
Sadly, the music on show is for the most part just the tiniest bit thin, lacking swing, or in some cases even that bass boom we all know and love. On top of this, because of the wide variety of MC’s and beats on show, “The Ablution” doesn’t quite hang together for me. Too many of the MCs sound less like the sound of the future than they could and too many of them seem to be treading water and doing exactly what is expected of them. The album is not without great moments – the fantastic Infinite Livez is as bizarre and wonderful as ever for example, but even so “Intchaaa!” isn’t really a match for most of the material on his own LP, no matter how twisted he manages to take it. Things peak mid album, with “Alphabet Man” where Yungun’s rhymes blend with a hook that sounds like it’s been half inched from Ernest Wranglin’s reggae classic “Surfin”, whilst on “Nathan Venus”, Sway recalls the storytelling of old school MCs like Slick Rick or Schoolly D and, despite wandering close to the edge of outright homophobia, just about succeeds in carrying off the concept despite it’s less than pleasant subject matter.
Too often though perfectly reasonable beats are matched with substandard rhymes (“Big Bang Theory” for example) or vice versa, all of which prevents this album reaching the heights it might have. Not a travesty, but considerably less than essential and certainly not for everyone.
Duck
