Rating: NNNN
Making expressly anti-capitalist hiphop in an overtly materialistic scene is bound to get you attention, but when the original cover art for your second album (artwork designed this summer) features you blowing up the World Trade Center, there’s trouble brewing. Party Music would be an uncommon burst of rabble-rousing even without the shocking, eerily prescient and since changed cover. Unlike fellow police-hating, establishment-destroying MCs Dead Prez, the Coup’s Boots Riley and DJ Pam the Funkstress realize that your message won’t stick if no one hears it. So, wisely, diatribes like 5 Million Ways To Kill A CEO and Ghetto Manifesto come with jeep-rattling beats and a West Coast thump that Dre might be proud of. In the current climate of flag-waving American pride, Party Music is a breath of fresh, if highly seditious, air. Breathe deeply.
