Hip-hop is cluttered with aging '90s rappers clinging to their old styles under the stubborn assumption that repeating past glories is somehow more noble than legitimizing modern rap forms. Almost all of these rappers suffer from diminishing returnsno formula, no matter how realized, is going to feel as fresh the second or third time aroundbut occasionally one of them strikes gold in spite of their obstinacy. Consider Del The Funky Homosapien's winning new Golden Era an exception to the rule, then. It's a doggedly insular record: 10 tracks of hard-funk throwbacks that in no way acknowledge the last decade or, for that matter, the outside world. There are no guests, and the bulk of the album is self-produced and sounds like it. Tracks like "One Out of a Million" and the demo-esque "Pearly Gates" play like stoned freestyles, while the whimsically cacophonous beat on "Double Barrel" is pretty clearly just the result of Del fucking around on a drum kit and keyboard. Del may be trying to amuse nobody but himself, but he's damn good at it: His ADD-riddled rhymes and strawman-baiting battle raps have rarely been funnier.
To me Tune-Yards' Merrill Garbus sounds like a flighty coffeehouse singer passing off Dirty Projectors-ified versions of "Smelly Cat" as high art, but you shouldn't let my cranky opinion stop you from checking out with open ears the band's latest, Whokill, an ambitious fusion of world music and gonzo pop that critics with far more tolerance for this sort of thing are going nuts over. Others are apparently hearing moments of great inspiration, but all I'm hearing is an album-length extension of Liz Phair's insufferably wacky "Bollywood" track. (Don't click that link.)
Also out this week: New ones from I'm From Barcelona, Dengue Fever,Duff McKagan and Bob Schneider, as well as the physical release of the Gorillaz album The Fall.
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