The Herbaliser Time to build EP Why is it that so many progressive producers and beatsmiths excelling in genres so closely related to hiphop end up making such mediocre tracks when they switch to orthedox rap? Adam F, Goldie and now The Herbaliser go from innovative pioneers of underground dance music in the UK to fifteen years back up the middle of the road in US hiphop. There are two mixes of this EP’s title track. The first is an up-beat golden-era instrumental thick with piano, guitar and other samples. It’s a decent enough if albeit very unoriginal composition marred by the cliched inclusion of some speech from the civil rights era and a very annoying bomb-drop sound effect on the bridge that sounds like it was recorded off of somebody’s keyring. The second mix features the same raucous funk horn loops and noisy break layering used by Sir Jinx, The Bomb Squad and other acts between 88 and 92. Whilst the former sounds like the featured emcee’s recent work with Mark B and the latter invites comparisons with his The Lion goes from strength to strength days, neither mixes bring anything that hasn’t been done better before nor which isn’t already readily available elsewhere. The B-side, Distinguished Jamaican English, has a calm but still assertive instrumental dominated by a jazz organ. As with the A-side, the Herbaliser no doubt worked for ages on these tracks but even after all that work, the end product doesn’t sound as good as AWOL-ONE (feat. Jizm) sum times, luke gerraty’s Crayons or one of tupac’s more sentimental tracks. Not only is the music here severely dated but the selection of two acts who have never developed their style since they originally came out doesn’t do the record any favours either. Contrary to his assertion that “nobody knows what’s next,” veteran emcee Blade serves up more of the same defiant against the odds raps harking to the era of big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap et al. As energetic and passionate as ever, Blade wields his dubious American accent to declare “not dracula, but spectacular!” and to remark upon how he feels hiphop has changed for the worse over the past decade or so. Whereas many of Blade’s verses on The Unknown suffered from poor scansion and an over-reliance on half-rhymes, this is (technically speaking) really tight stuff. A stand out quotable is: “everybody’s a rapper, every rapper’s an actor, every actor’s a rapper with no heart in the chapter. When it began it was like mud in the hand, some tried to mould and others couldn’t give a damn. But now it’s all changed and everybody’s a fan, even the head of sony’s got plans for rap man!” Unfortunately, not all of the lyrics are so succinct. The downside of blade’s fixation with reviving the passion of the golden era to deliver more of the same ranting about how he’ll make records even if nobody cares is that rap styles have moved on in the past ten or so years. Subsequently, this emphasis on flow over content results in very wasteful lyrics which initially sound good but soon grow tiresome and lack any substance. The track is spoilt by too many clunky rhyme-driven passages such as: “you can have it if you want it bad enough to come and get it don’t sweat it, just let, it take control of your soul and let it roll as the story unfolds the prophesy is told!” or “you can act the act but if you lack the knack then you wont be back again and that’s a fact!” There’s few surprises with the B-side either. distinguished jamaican english finds Phi Life Cypher churning out more of the same cookie-cutter battle braggadocio detailing how great their lyrics are and how contenders and listeners should beware because “I spit the heavy shit that will leave you flatter than a halibut.” Phi Life aren’t as deep in the game as blade but they also have an unhealthy preoccupation with using the same style ad nauseam whereby the number of internal rhymes is demed more important than craftsmanship and clarity of meaning. Once again, after the initial novelty of their flows, their awkward verbosity during lyrics like “distinguished, jamaicanenglish, linguistic lyricist, I flip scripts without moving my lips like ventriloquists” or “even einstein’s mind was not as competitive as mine, the first time I kicked a rhyme I left the competition behind.” fast becomes irritating. Life’s partner Si phillie comes with more comprehensible lyrics but it’s too little, too late. Phi Life Cypher like using the words “lyrical” and “linguistic” every other line but this track features very uneconomic use of language and is far from “lyrical.” - Sumo Kaplunk | profile © CD Goldie/ukhh.com 1999 - 2003