Busdriver - Fear of a Black Tangent (2005)

I heard somewhere that Busdriver was what the kids on the streets are listening to—excuse me, what the kids on the streets are checking for these days; and while most things associated with today's young people tend to be pure fucking garbage, I like to keep an open mind because I know it can't all be rainbow haired foetuses named after forms of anxiety medication. However, it turns out that Fear of a Black Tangent came out in 2005, meaning it probably counts as old school by now, although this may also be why it's worth a listen; so swings and roundabouts or summink…

Should I ever have given the impression, I'm not actually down on backpack rap - or underground, which is maybe a less annoying tag - just the stuff which sticks to the self-important formula while sneering at everyone else - the funky puritans who want you to expand your mind with a game of chess prior to making sweet lurve to your woman partner. Busdriver probably counts as underground, beyond which he's more or less his own genre - intelligent, and I mean real intelligence here, not just some bore aspiring to be your social worker. He's in the same ballpark as E-40 in terms of sonics and mood, also massively witty, which may not be obvious from the first few spins with that verbal firehose blasting away for an hour or more. But sense comes with familiarity, and the gags - delivered with deadpan earnest - are gutbusting once they emerge.

I replied to the wuss with a yo' mama's joke,
When he said how much he pushed the envelope.
A group of sexually ambivalent nihilst, crying from an ovarian cyst,
Picking at a vegetarian dish,
Idolising a German band who barely exist,
But me, my name's never on the full-colour flyer.
I'm just the dull Busdriver,
Thinking 'til my head is a bowl of dust fibers.

Musically, it's as distinct as it is lyrically, and I was surprised to see a full cast of producers listed, having assumed it could only be the work of himself, so beautifully formed is the vision as a whole. The sound leans towards actual instruments, as distinct from bleeps, glitches, and other elements not found in nature; but the way it's all put together is incredible - highly tuneful, and gently psychedelic in the sense of the Bonzos rather than the Legendary Pink Dots - although their name also came to mind. It would be pleasant if unremarkable but for the explosive energy somehow pinning all the notes to the beat, like it's threatening to go drum and bass without ever quite getting there, or if not drum and bass, then maybe one of the more manic Bugs Bunny cartoons run through the projector at four or five times normal speed.

...and by the point at which you believe you've figured all this out, you're now listening so fast that you can actually digest the import of Lefty's Lament, and so realise you've been listening to Public Enemy all along, or a tangent thereof; so I guess that's where the title came from.