Hip-hop has been dominated by thugs and gangsters for so long that it's become easy to forget that when it started out, it was relatively lighthearted party music with origins in street dances. This album by
MiC K!NG and Chum (who have subsequently renamed themselves Cool-Aide) reminds you forcefully what has been lost with the ascendancy of guns, bling, drugs, and sexual objectification in hip-hop's lyrical themes over the past 20 years or so, along with the progressive brutalization of its beats -- what's been lost is that sense of fun. Fun is what infuses every moment of this album: from the coolly swaying and good-humored braggadocio of "I'm the Best Mayne" to the charmingly quirky groove of "Neo Jack Swing" and the blocky, old-school beat that underlies "I'm All That 2009," these guys make clear their commitment to happy-face funk. That's not to say that Chum's beats aren't complex (they are) or that
MiC K!NG's rhymes aren't sophisticated (they are, too) -- just that they don't sound like they feel any particular need to prove how hard they are. That's also not to say that everything completely succeeds: "Take Steps" is built on an awkwardly thumpy house beat and "About Time" carries its rockishness a bit clunkily, but neither of those tracks is a complete loss and just about everything else is far better than average. And "Wordperfect" is the best rap song title, ever. ~ Rick Anderson