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Outsiders who are curious about dance music should keep an ear out
for the impure stuff. Most new dance records are confusingly
abstract unless you listen with your body in a public space big
enough to hold the bass line. That's why In the Mode (Talkin'
Loud/Island), the second album by British drum 'n' bass maestro
Roni Size and his group Reprazent, is a find. Size's 1997 New Forms
was like a modern Booker T. & the M.G.'s album--deeper-grooved than
most, but a little spare. Here, to borrow his own metaphor, he puts
flesh on the New Forms skeleton. Half a dozen tracks featuring
Reprazent rapper MC Dynamite join guest appearances by Method Man
and the Roots' human beat-box Rahzel and a wealth of melodic hooks
to make this one like a Wu-Tang album where RZA's beats are the
main attraction no matter what's happening up top (a good
description, by the way, of the overlooked and recommended Ghost
Dog soundtrack). Unfolding seamlessly from hard rap to diva lament
to wierdo instrumental, it's the kind of rap-dance fusion many try
and few come near.
No fewer than three current compilations make something of the rap-rock
fusion Limp Bizkit takes to the bank. If Fred Durst imitations
are your idea of progressive vocalizing, skip Priority's messily
conceived and stupidly executed Rebirth of the Loud and try
Republic's Take a Bite Outta Rhyme, where white bands cover black
rap classics (including Dynamite Hack's memorable wimpification of
N.W.A's Boyz-N-The Hood). But my energetic preference is for Loud
Rocks, where the Wu-Tang Clan's stable of rappers rap over guitar
beats that combine a grandeur worthy of RZA and an ugliness all
their own.
Playboy, Nov. 2000
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