Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

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Consumer Guide Album

McEnroe: Disenfranchised [Peanuts and Corn, 2003]
This Vancouver rapper and label owner takes keeping it real and writing what you know further than any other label owner would let him. In my favorite song he tracks payables and receivables and remarks existentially, "In the end we're all living off consignment." But that's not the only one where he describes how dull his life is and then makes that seem interesting. Playing and mixing keyb or guitar over cut-up drums, he thinks out loud in an utterly un-street cadence that reaches across the northland from Buck 65 to Slug out to B.C. In the end you not only feel you know this hard-working guy, you want to find out where he's going and wish him godspeed. Subsistence hip hop--can it survive? Not forever. Order some now. A-