Frank Ramz Gets Funked Up

The drought of funky soul instrumentals ended when Stones Throw, Daptone, Truth and Soul as well as some other imprints began reissuing lost classics on top of releasing some new fire. The varying degrees of success that each label has encountered is mitigated by the overwhelmingly positive reception that each new slab is met with. Maybe some of those folks are gonna make a cool milli, but even if they don’t, releasing music with such a high standard should be enough of a reward (almost). A Daptone Records  releases this year, a disc from Menahan Street Band entitled Make the Road By Walking, isn’t only one of the strongest instrumental discs 2009 has witnessed thus far, it’s also provided the premise for a release by Frank Ramz that utilizes each of the album’s tracks for backing up his flow.

“NO, it's an album to me, or you can call it a project,” begins to explain the conception of this release by its principal. Maintaining the original album’s title and track names, the Frank Ramz disc comes across as so overwhelmingly deftly produced that folks not being aware of the Menahan album would just assume that this emcee enlisted a funky backing band. When he raps, Ramz approximates any ‘enlightened’ emcee touching on a variety of personal topics in addition to some dissection of the world around him.

However, when the singing crops up on “Montego Sunset,” listeners have gotta wonder what’s going on. Of course, his singing only serves as an introduction – one that’s way too long - on the island inspired tune. And as Ramz goes in over the track it seems as if he’s just poorly wooing some chick. It’s an early – yet singular misstep on this buoyant effort. Thankfully, the following track moves into a completely different territory as “Karina” approximates some spoken word even if it could just be interpreted as a slow flow. Regardless, Ramz is able to tell a story with a moral, which is a talent that seems to endlessly escape emcees of his vintage.

On “Birds,” the rapper works with a bouncy offering over which he sees fit to brag and boast over in a pretty traditional fashion. Of course, the pacing of the tracks here more likely than not make remaining steady difficult amidst the pretty frequent shifts in time and tempo. Ramz handles each of these obstacles with great aplomb while announcing himself as a personage to watch in the increasingly digital field of hip hop with lines like “I’m gonna shoot the moon with the use of tunes…”

Make the Road By Walking has its moments – both good and bad. But there’s overwhelming evidence that Ramz is an intelligent performer with taste covering every genre caveat that hip hop can come up with. The problematic singing on the aforementioned “Montego Sunset” which gets briefly revisited on “The Contender” should be addressed prior to further releases. But this disc, serving as an introduction to this rapper’s ideology and style is gonna make listeners want a follow up pretty quickly.