Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Consumer Guide Album

AD the Voice: Maxi-Single [Statik Entertainment EP, 2007]
AD is Schenectady-born, Rhinebeck-based, African-American attorney Antonio Delgado, Democratic candidate for Congress in New York's 19th district, where the mealy-mouthed Republican incumbent has gone after him for this hip-hop EP he recorded in 2007. And how about that? Not only doesn't it deploy "phrases derogatory to women" or--wha?--"glorif[y] pornography and drug use." It's also really good. Suavely articulated over simple, dramatic beats, every word is thought through and all five songs work as songs. The special standouts are "U Scared," where "There's a war going on" evokes America's ongoing race and class combat while dissing both black-on-black violence and "pop like a pimple" rap, and "Draped in Flags," the best-informed Iraq War song this side of Becky Warren's "Get Calm, Stay Low." A DCCC poll has Delgado's jobs-and-healthcare campaign seven points ahead in a predominantly white district where John Hall of Orleans served two House terms a decade ago. So get on it, my peeps in New Paltz with its SUNY hipsters and Oneonta with its SUNY pop music program, in Hunter no longer just a ski town and Hudson now an exurban hub. This 2016 iteration of the EP is filled out with "clean" versions you can do without, although the a cappella "U Scared" is a keeper. So you could just download the songs. But I say you buy the physical and then do some phonebanking if not door-knocking for Antonio Delgado. When he wins, you'll have a collector's item on your hands. A-