Album Review: Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
Let me start off by saying this is the best rap record I’ve heard in a long time. I mean: a very long time. This record pretty much shits on anything I heard last year and anything I’ve heard this year so far including El-P’s Cancer4Cure and El produced this record. El also happens to be my favorite rapper and producer so that says a ton about how good this record is. Unless they get Biggie’s hologram to do a feature with RA The Rugged Man for his new joint that’s dropping soon, I don’t think anything will come close to this shit.
You might be familiar with Killer Mike from his numerous cameos on Outkast songs such as The Whole World, his appearance on Bone Crusher’s Never Scared or the plethora of guest spots that he’s done. Mike has been a staple of the rap community for years, but has never put out a solo effort that has had much impact. Don’t misinterpret that, Mike has put out solo efforts, they just haven’t been popularly recieved. While lyrically, Mike has always been great, he’s never had the commerical viability of his collaborators.
R.A.P. Music is the end of Mike’s relative obscurity in the rap community. The record is produced exclusively by underground hip-hop’s sonically gifted, tin-foil hat wearing wunderkind El-P. The resulting collaboration is a record that’s like having a molotov cocktail thrown through your hotel room window for a wake up call. Right off the bat, Mike goes for the throat on the opening track, quipping … POW MOTHERFUCKER POW/ come up off your chain/ POW MOTHERFUCKER POW/ one up in their brain/ we some money hungry wolves/ and we down to eat the rich/ your body guard ain’t shit/ we strip ‘em like a stripper bitch. Not to mention, Bun B and T.I. kill the track. T.I.’s flow on this one is unfuckwithable.
I could go into a track by track breakdown of why each song is fucking great, but you should probably just take a listen for yourself. This is one of those records that puts a smile on my face. If you’re an ardent fan of hip-hop music, it will make you smile too. It’s a feeling I remember having a lot as a teenager. I rarely come across records or even songs that truly are fucking great to listen to. From El-P’s astonishingly awesome beats to Mike’s flow, it’s well crafted and as close to perfect as a rap record gets these days. It reminds me of the first time I heard Triumph on Wu-Tang’s Forever or Knuckleheadz off Raekwon’s legendary Purple Tape. The difference is, it’s not just some of the tracks on the record, it’s almost all of them.
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