Consumer Guide Album

The Coup: Pick a Bigger Weapon [Epitaph, 2006]
Boots Riley's live-in-the-studio funk is as retro as his Afro, and when Talib Kweli percusses next to him you'd think his flow was straight out the Watts Prophets. So call him corny if his Marxist talk makes you nervous. Fact is, the brother's some writer, with his own Oaktown sound. Marxism fans should start with the two love songs: "Ijustwannalayaroundalldayinbedwithyou" lays out the rationalization of the capitalist workday, while the Silk E. feature "BabyLet'sHaveABabyBeforeBushDoSomethin'Crazy" speaks for itself. Plus the Chomskyite "Head (of State)" also has sex in it, the sponsored "Ass-Breath Killers" will help cure your bootymouth, and "I Love Boosters!" is merely the warmest of many shout-outs to a criminal community he's too busy to join. Riley understands as well as any songwriter in America how the black poor and other barely employeds get by, and he also understands who's taking their money, and how. His lesser songs would be dookie gold on an ordinary undie-rap album. And he's no moralizer: "I'm here to laugh, love, fuck, and drink liquor/And help the damn revolution come quicker." A