The Nu Mutants

Fire Starter

(Self Released, 2004)

It’s hard to dislike a group that so obviously has their heart in the right place. The Nu Mutants – which may or may not be a covert nod to the X-Men -  seems to be a collective made up of friends and associates from the Toledo area that are rather critical of the current climate of hip hop. To call this particular EP reflexive would be an understatement. Its first track, featuring the rant by Natural, takes the form of a press conference on aptly named “The State of Hip Hop” and utilizes the idea that if hip-hop were a state, this man “would govern that shit.” Chyna Black is featured on the following track, which also exhibits some very poor mixing and leaves the vocals sounding ridiculously high when contrasted with the beat, which itself is somewhat cheese related. Spoken word can get tedious, as this album exhibits again and again, but at least Jesus Bayano makes some poignant statements like comparing religion to gangs. That, however, isn’t quite as rich as the contrast between law enforcement and criminals, which should have cropped up of the course of the album somewhere. A bit further on, Imani Lateef, while having the most ethnic sounding name, has the least interesting sounding track and leads into the much welcomed “Outro” consisting of a group of people warbling over a simple and pretty boring beat. Only in dreams can I comment positively upon this slab, which is unfortunate due to the effort that no doubt was poured into it. But, maybe I just have bad taste. Maybe I’m not in tune with whatever the hip hop nation is. Who knows?

DJ Mayonnaise

Still Alive

(Anticon, 2007)

As Anticon has decided to spread out musically, the halcyon days of the late ‘90s with its forward thinking hip-hop and that skewed production has been left behind to a certain extent. Fittingly enough, the last release by DJ Mayo was in-fact from that period; 1999 to be exact. Additionally, he’s partially responsible for the unappreciated, watershed moment that is Bottle of Humans contributing a bit work to its production. But a hiatus then ensued. The result after his time away from he boards can easily be considered as thoughtful and passionate as his earlier work. The hidden track that finds its way on to the end of the disc is as upsetting as anything Mayo produced for Sole. This along with the almost rock song “The Windham Song” fill in the time between this release and Mayo’s previous work. Additionally, K-the-I turns in the only vocal on this slab over a clavichord beat that makes the entire affair sound as if Antipop Consortium got back together. This disc is not a hard listen, apart from the ambient oboe track, “May Days”. Yet, Still Alive recalls what Anticon was headed towards and reminds the listener what could have been if label heads shied away from Thee More Shallows and the likes.