Mr. Len
Pity the Fool: Experiments in Therapy Behind the Mask of Music While Handing Out Dummy Smacks
[Matador; 2001]
Rating: 8.2
For more than six years, DJ Mr. Len made up one-third of the acclaimed underground
hip-hop trio Company Flow. Since CoFlow underwent their "amicable split" last
year, Mr. Len has been on his own. Suffice it to say, he's doing just fine. And
his first solo album, Pity the Fool, is the proof.
When it comes to MCs, Len uses many of them. By the time you've reached the
end of Pity the Fool's 16 tracks, you've heard nearly 20 different
individuals-- from Steady Roc, to the Arsonist's Q-Unique, to Atlanta
up-and-comers Massinfluence. This gives the disc diversity not just in vocal
delivery, but also in attitude and content. You've got the ever-amusing Chubb
Rock "changing colors like iMacs" and puffing his skills on "Dummy Smacks"; Jean
Grae vamping about a Columbine-style teen rampage on the nine-minute epic "Taco
Day"; Lord Sear, pleading with his rotund "big-chocolate-shake-drinkin', no
Ultra-Slimfast usin'" love-interest to never change on "Girl (Got to Give It to
Me)." Maybe it's Mr. Len's effect on his collaborators, but every one of them
sounds relaxed and confident, like there's nothing better or easier than rapping
over a Len track.
If the MCs are diverse, the beats are Tiger Woods. The whole thing sounds like a
well-planned mix tape: although no two tracks are the same, you can tell they're
the product of the same imagination. Two ends of the spectrum are "Get Loose"
and "Force Fed." "Get Loose," featuring the admirable flow of Massinfluence, is
built around the kind of dirty super-wah'd bassline that could have come straight
off of Miles' On the Corner. The Pantera-like heavy metal of "Force Fed,"
meanwhile, replaces the funk with confrontation and aggression, courtesy of
Agents of Man and Amplifire.
One of the album's standouts, "Dummy Smacks," builds around an upbeat, funky horn
section, but separates Chubb Rock's from Mr. Live's verses with five different
ten-second interludes, including a Gregorian drone, a dark electronic sample and
some soulful blues-fella setting up a Chubb verse by expressing, "There's
something I've wanted to say for a long, long time." The interludes cut up the
beat nicely, keeping the horns sounding persistent and fresh. Len is clearly in
touch with his ass, and makes it known with his mastery of beat-dynamics,
modulating them by adding choruses, bridges, or just letting a bassline drop out
of the mix, to leave only a breakbeat. "Get Loose" is a prime example-- its
orchestration is steady throughout, but after a few minutes, the mix suddenly
opens up like it went from mono to stereo.
I'm constantly baffled by what constitutes hip-hop's "underground." Apparently,
the term has nothing to do with obscurity, novelty or musical subversion, because
Pity the Fool is "underground," and it's none of the above. Neither is it
a disc rife with musical surprises, abstract concepts or ideological enlightenment.
It's simply bold, street-level hip-hop with plenty of verve and attitude-- exactly
what you wish they'd play on the radio.
-Brad Haywood, November 19th, 2001