News of Bill Cosby producing a rap album was greeted with understandable skepticism, what with, you know, Bill Cobsy infamous hatred of rap music. That the Cosby rap album, State of Emergency, spreads a positive message about youth living up to their potential and resisting the evils of the streets won't surprise anybody, but the actual sound of the album is more of a shock: Judging from the samples posted on Cosby's Web site, it's a rough, hard-hitting record, at times almost comically cacophonous. On the title track, Cosby (who doesn't rap, obviously) finds a way to work in his beloved jazz, with a blurting saxophone that dates the song to about 1991. But layered over the sax is every obnoxious noise possible: braying police sirens, shattering windows and, for good measure, a truck horn. There's no break from the noises; they just keep piling on top of each other, making for a song that literally becomes less tolerable every second.
So this is how rap music sounds like to people who hate rap music. I now realize that I owe my parents a big, big apology.
Listen if you dare:
