There is a moment within the first 25 pages of the Haruki Murakami novel Dance Dance Dance that never fails to crack me up; that is when this hotel manager dude was sizing up the protagonist (a doppelganger for Murakami himself, as always) and wasn’t left particularly impressed by the Mickey Mouse watch on his wrist. I suppose there are times where I get the same slightly-embarrassed-for me kind of reaction too, for what it’s worth, every time people finds out that I actually listen to rap songs still. Which is why Madvillain mattered so much, perhaps.
Madvillain
Madvillainy [Stones Throw, 2004]
Amid the bustle of advertisement-filler rap artistes and their lamentable sameness choking up traffic in the past decade, Madvillainy clearly stands out for its originality, an album that best personified the surpassing wit and wisdom of underground hip-hop veterans MF Doom and Madlib in complete communion. Everything about Madvillainy was kinda special, starting with the fact that this collaboration between these two unique individuals actually worked out in the first place: Madlib’s reference-heavy production, abstract yet accessible, and as irrepressible as those classic jazz records he reveres; the barking-mad ingenuity of Doom, wilding out on the mike and spewing clever verses in his signature sketch-poetic style that left many commenting on the lack of choruses on the album; and the pulverizing rate at which this stoned duo burn through a range of alter egos in the span of 22 dope tracks – things don’t get crazier than the noticeable swagger with which Doom (in character as Viktor Vaughn) disses himself mercilessly on “Fancy Clown”. In retrospect, Madvillainy holds a special appeal perhaps because the two seem to have developed a strange, mind-meld telepathy along the way; the delirious manner Doom’s rhymes are set canoeing back and forth in answer to Madlib’s uncanny beats and samples is, regrettably, about as outdated these days as the anachronistic armor Doom sports on the album cover. A pretty persuasive case can be made that the slow, soulful and unusually poised flow of Madvillainy presents a definitive statement for making albums that transcend their genres without sacrificing their idiosyncrasies.
Amid the bustle of advertisement-filler rap artistes and their lamentable sameness choking up traffic in the past decade, Madvillainy clearly stands out for its originality, an album that best personified the surpassing wit and wisdom of underground hip-hop veterans MF Doom and Madlib in complete communion. Everything about Madvillainy was kinda special, starting with the fact that this collaboration between these two unique individuals actually worked out in the first place: Madlib’s reference-heavy production, abstract yet accessible, and as irrepressible as those classic jazz records he reveres; the barking-mad ingenuity of Doom, wilding out on the mike and spewing clever verses in his signature sketch-poetic style that left many commenting on the lack of choruses on the album; and the pulverizing rate at which this stoned duo burn through a range of alter egos in the span of 22 dope tracks – things don’t get crazier than the noticeable swagger with which Doom (in character as Viktor Vaughn) disses himself mercilessly on “Fancy Clown”. In retrospect, Madvillainy holds a special appeal perhaps because the two seem to have developed a strange, mind-meld telepathy along the way; the delirious manner Doom’s rhymes are set canoeing back and forth in answer to Madlib’s uncanny beats and samples is, regrettably, about as outdated these days as the anachronistic armor Doom sports on the album cover. A pretty persuasive case can be made that the slow, soulful and unusually poised flow of Madvillainy presents a definitive statement for making albums that transcend their genres without sacrificing their idiosyncrasies.
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