Every once and awhile an album comes around that is so highly anticipated that it seems impossible it can live up to the hype. Most of them don’t. But for every 10 or 15 disappointments (see Beck’s Sea Change or Belle & Sebastian’s Fold Your Hands Child …), there emerges one album that delivers on its promise, Radiohead’s Kid A being a prime example. Since hyped hip-hop albums often fall prey to this disappointment, the success of the brilliant collaboration that resulted in Madvillainy is all the more impressive.
Considering the band members, though, there never was a reason to worry. Madvillain is the project of two of the brightest figures in the hip-hop underground: stoned genius Madlib handles the beats while MF Doom spits the rhymes. Both have had a streak of great albums recently, most notably Doom, whose Vaudeville Villain (under his Viktor Vaughn alter ego) could easily be named the best rap album of 2003. The combination of Madlib’s far-reaching samples and jazz-infused beats and Doom’s long-verse flow creates a perfect union, resulting in some of the best rap songs the underground has heard in years.
The creativity and imagination of the two is immediately striking, as the opening track is built around an accordion sample. Throughout the album Madlib throws in surf guitars, game show theme songs, jazz piano, blaxploitation funk, synth breaks, country music and more percussive experiments than any one album has any right to contain. In turn, Doom drops some of the most lyrically complex lines this side of Definitive Jux underground star Aesop Rock. He maintains rhyme schemes and intelligibility unheard of in modern hip-hop, and manages to alternate the speed of his flow perfectly.
Of the 22 brief tracks on the album at least 14 show definite signs of genius, and all include a Doom one-liner, or Madlib hook that will keep you coming back for more. A prime example is the line, “Turn a Newport Light to a joint right before your eyes,” from “America’s Most Blunted,” which, with its blaring horns and deep bass, ought to be the stoner anthem of the decade. Tracks like “Meat Grinder” and “Figaro” strip down the beats and let Doom shine, while Madlib takes the reigns on the album’s three instrumentals, including the excellent “Supervillain Theme.” This is finest album the hip-hop underground has produced in some time, and is a must-listen for all rap fans.
-P.S. Hepburn
