MC Paul Barman
It's Very Stimulating EP
[Wordsound]
Rating: 5.8
How could I know it then, as it happened, that this would be my most distinct
memory of being a young boy in Ridgewood, New Jersey? After all, we were too
young to think of memory. Or even of respecting the dead, for that matter. The
older kid-- who we deemed "cool" solely because he was older-- came up with the
idea. He'd even tied the rope around the neck of the bird, which lay slumped
in the wet leaves by the roadside. But he couldn't commit the final act, leaving
it instead for someone younger and more impressionable. Someone who wanted to be
seen as cool by the older kid.
Someone who wasn't me. My best friend and next-door neighbor stepped up, grabbed
the string, whirled the bird. I believe he yelled, "Lasso!" just as the body
separated from the head and flew aloft in an NFL Films-style slow-motion arc.
With onlookers mouths' agape, it descended through the sunroof a yellow Le Car
that had come to a stop at the nearby intersection. The denouement wasn't enough
to instill laughter, fear, the flight response, or anything else related to
emotional shock or physical paralysis.
The car door flung open, as car doors have a tendency to do in such moments, and
a tall, hysterical, mini-skirted woman flung herself from the small cab. Her long
brown hair danced in the wind, and her white blouse rippled like the main sheet
of a jibing sailboat. But that tight skirt kept her legs from pumping hard enough,
so that despite our delayed reaction, escaping was relatively easy. Once safe,
the other emotions kicked in. We laughed in disbelief, then felt fear that she
recognized one of us, and finally "broke up," fleeing to our respective homes to
avoid capture and reduce suspicion, as all smart suburban guerrillas will do.
I bet Paul Barman had an experience like this. Not exactly, but something like
it. Everyone who grew up in Ridgewood had at least one. But then again, like
most aspiring rappers these days, Paul left Ridgewood to attend Brown University.
So maybe he was always smart enough to avoid such inhuman behavior as ours. But
Prince Paul must have heard something he liked because he decided to produce
this EP.
Thus, the opening track, "Joy of Your World," begins with a stuttered beat that
rises in volume before breaking into a steady, unchallenging groove, accompanied
by a leisurely clarinet and harp swipes. A lounge piano is haphazardly beaten
during Barman's rhymes, but-- in typical Prince Paul fashion-- that's all you
get. You shouldn't, wouldn't and don't buy this album for fresh, inventive beats.
The first six lines are a perfect representation of the "not so enigmatic as the
press seems to think" MC Paul Barman (see the right column for a quick breakdown):
Lines: Means that Paul Barman:
"My brain makes the earth dark" ...is arrogant
"but I'm hung like a birthmark" ...and self-deprecating!
"I like to suck toes" ...is a sexually repressed
"Yours secrete fructose" [change "repressed" to "disturbed"]
"I make paintings based on grids" ...likes to draw [see back page of Spin]
"Just like Chuck Close" ...pretends he's erudite [it's pretentious]
What saves Paul Barman is that his lyrics, while sometimes offputting, are often
very funny. "Joy of Your World," for instance, is a slight parody of Lauryn Hill's
"To Zion." During the chorus, he sings, "Now the joy/ Of your world/ Is Paul
Barman," immediately followed by a high pitched "beautiful, beautiful Barman."
He's funniest, however, when rapping about sex-- "I'll still be rhymin' when I'm
in your hymen.../ I'm a hunter-gatherer, a cunter-latherer"-- or lack thereof--
"Those ancient Hamptonites/ They're always like, 'I can't tonight.'" Reading those
first two lines, you might be slightly disturbed. But given his obvious lack of
seriousness, as well as the frequency with which he criticizes his sexual inadequacies,
Barman won't have you crying, "Misogyny!" as Eminem would. Rather, it's just the
subconscious musings of an Ivy League rapper whose distorted-speed flow sounds like
a warped cassette in a broken tape deck.
Like wrapping a string around a dead bird, spinning it through the air, and seeing
its body fly into the sunroof of a Le Car, MC Paul Barman is odd, funny, and mostly
harmless. The main difference is that, in a few months, he won't be decapitated-bird
funny. He'll just be ha-ha funny.
-Ryan Kearney