RSSKool & Kass [extended]
- Stargate Mixtape [Greedhead download, 2011] A-
- 51 [Greedhead download, 2012] B+
- Peaceful Solutions [Bandcamp download, 2013] A-
- 19 [Bandcamp download, 2013] *
- 63 [Bandcamp download, 2013] A-
- Not O.K. [Bandcamp download, 2013] B+
- Word O.K. [Bandcamp download, 2014] A
- Coke Boys 5 [Bandcamp download, 2014] **
- Barter 7 [self-released, 2015] A-
- Official [self-released, 2016] *
See Also:
Consumer Guide Reviews:
Kassa Overall: Stargate Mixtape [Greedhead download, 2011]
I admit, some might find this one ethically dubious. Seattle-raised, Harlem-based, Kool A.D.-linked rapper and drummer (jazz drummer--Vijay Iyer mean anything to you?) appropriates hooks provided to such worthies as Wiz Khalifa, Jennifer Lopez, Keri Hilson, Rihanna, and a gorilla-pitched Katy Perry by the Norwegian popmeisters name-checked in the title. Every one is improved markedly even though Kassa's not quite an A-game rapper himself. Really, what a tasty way to get your empty calories--in songs about your cousin's cancer and making love to the A-game rapper who picked up your laundry. Which consisted entirely of white socks. A-
Kool A.D.: 51 [Greedhead download, 2012]
Heems's Das Racist partner favors skinnier, more electro beats, most by his Bay Area compadre Amaze 88, which he loops under raps that carry more weight on this April mixtape than they did on The Palm Wine Drinkard just a few months before--as do the cameos from Mr. Rogers and a chipmunked Huey P. Newton. True, the record shudders to a virtual halt when the ecumenical auteur turns beatmaker midway through, and some may judge the rhymes irresponsibly playful. But he's right about "Yo these girls are smart man/I'm trying to figure out how to play my part man/I don't know how to start man/The strangest organ is the human heart man/Fuck with shortcuts like I'm Robert Altman/Fuck with long shots like I'm Robert Altman/Fuck with actresses like I'm Robert Altman/Recycled like half a verse but that's art man." That is art. B+
Peaceful Solutions [Bandcamp download, 2013]
Kool A.D.'s the laff-a-minute one with the throat cured by years of holding his tokes in and the stoned laff to match, Kassa Overall the jazz drummer qua all-over beatmaker and relatively rational and mellow rapper. Kool's more "I gotta think about some shit not to give a fuck about," Kass more "Words from a hat like barely a metaphor/Still finding myself the reason I met her for." Both give "Shouts to our white mothers/Thank God they liked brothers." Bob Marley offers the benediction. Bone Thugs' Bizzy Bone raves about Jesus, money, and sleeping in the bus station for upwards of 10 minutes. A-
Kool A.D.: 19 [Bandcamp download, 2013]
Hip-hop as clever conversation--gallery-rap ("All Skreets," "Marine World Africa") *
Kool A.D.: 63 [Bandcamp download, 2013]
Released simultaneously with 19 in early 2013, this is the one that goes down easy. Perpetually amused and perpetually ticked off, unusually well-informed even though he doesn't read enough, his congenially stoned, organically radical, holistically pro-life flow defines without dominating a cast of nearly two dozen, including a couple of junior pimps keeping it whatever they keep it. Few tracks maintain like the picaresque jingle "Airplane Flight" or the Kanyefied autobiography "Exotische Kunst." But every one keeps on bullshittin'. Hip-hop as good conversation. Dinner-rap with PSAs. A-
Kool A.D.: Not O.K. [Bandcamp download, 2013]
From the beatless two-finger-piano-plus-sine-wave opener to the minimalist-piano-plus-brushes closer, you'll believe Victor Vazquez is deploying the weirder half of the sessions from which he'll construct two albums. The beats are funkier but never aggressively danceable--synth whistles, skeletal syndrum snatches, organ parts, sandpaper vinyl noise. And the raps are in Spanish and French as well as English, as befits a guy who claims Michael Ondaatje, believes Leonard Maltin and Rick Ross belong in successive 16s, and leads his own prayer circle. B+
Kool A.D.: Word O.K. [Bandcamp download, 2014]
After releasing six mixtapes between February 2013 and March 2014, the multicultural who broke up Das Racist rested, and this was a good place to stop--a culmination, temporary or maybe not. Splitting the difference between modest confidence and cool diffidence, he claims "best rapper in the world" as a joke because these days a joke is a lot better than nothing if it's brainy and benevolent and keeps you in food, shelter, and airplane travel. Old materials you won't mind hearing again are recycled occasionally. First-string cameo providers Lady Bug, Talib Kweli, and Del the Funkee Whatever add class. Amaze 88 and the beatmaking corps keep the flow relaxed, strange, and thrift-store lush. Near the end of the opening "Open Letter," this best rapper in the world tosses off a metaphor that rhymes with "metaphor": "If you headed for a wall you better set a course through a door." Clearly, that's what he thinks he's done. Here's hoping that door either stays open or led him into a room where he can get his work done when he's in the mood. A
Kool & Kass Are . . . Peaceful Solutions: Coke Boys 5 [Bandcamp download, 2014]
Stoned afternoon in a Berlin hotel room hooked on the samples "Dayum, son, where'd you find this?" and "Maybach music" ("C.R.E.A.M.," "Uoeno") **
Peaceful Solutions: Barter 7 [self-released, 2015]
Stoner alt-rap from Wesleyan and Das Racist graduate Kool A.D., who in late November also posted O.K., a 100-track pay-what-you-want Bandcamp mixtape I wish he'd fucking "curate" and haven't found time for, although for research's sake I enjoyed the seven-minute "Alice Coltrane" OK. With affable sidekick Kassa Overall making it a duo, this August release is somewhat more . . . can I say finished? Nah. Passage taken half at random over an undeveloped loop from the by no means focus track (whatever that would mean with these jokers) "Hot Negro Pause": "Shit that/Huh/It's that shit that/It's that shit that/Make you slip all of the clips out the guns though/Sippin on a Cris but not the racist champagne the Cuban beer/So y'all can know it's a real Cuban here/Happy Nubian New Year." And it goes on, affably and much more than passably. I've never been much of a pothead. But Victor Vazquez's goofily utopian, politically hip benevolence makes more of weed than Jerry Rubin or Dr. Chronic ever did. He's an escape and a comfort, and I wish him enough money to live on. Curated Verse: "Plus green energy/Clean green energy/No frackin' or dependence on foreign oil/Uh tamales in corn husks no foil/Uh cut the billions allotted to military spending and put that shit into education/But save me one spaceship just in case man." A-
Kool A.D.: Official [self-released, 2016]
Boy Crisis founder changes shit up on theoretically hit-seeking hyphy album ("Es Nada," "U Kno We on the West Side") *