Kokayi "Mass Instructions" (Pho13Music/CDBaby)
Although D.C.'s hip-hop intelligentsia might be loath to admit it, this town is still a backwater when it comes to the straight-up beats/rhymes/life thing. Yeah, the clacka-clacka heartbeat of go-go never stops, and only God knows whether Wale's commercial comet-tail is long enough to pull a few of the local traditionalists with him. But the Capital's long-toiling four-pillar guys -- the thoughtful, history-indebted mic-men like Kokayi -- have never had much of a national profile, despite a decade or more of creative spurts and outside-the-Beltway opportunities. Kokayi himself (aka Carl Walker) has lots of those exploits on his resume, including time with a globetrotting band (Opus Akoben) and a jazz patron (Steve Coleman). It's a Roots-ish career, but without the mass-market exposure to a generation of hippie kids. Maybe things happen for a reason.
Anyway, here's why Kokayi might still have his best hip-hop days ahead of him: Mass Instructions, his latest, does all the things that a great '90s album would do, but the Southwest-born rapper/producer doesn't prostrate himself at the altar of Premier and Pete Rock. He merely mimics their efficiency, cramming a series of expressive hooks into a 12-song, 45-minute package. He's best when he drenches his rhymes in Carribbean-inflected melody and buttresses his beats with throwback instrumentation: The horn riff on the blissfully cocky "Knowus Mayne" sounds like a deft Herb Alpert sample, but for all I know, Kokayi could've concoted it totally on his Roland Fantom X6; ditto for the major-key cello/viola/whateva snippets that grace the guns-and-butter jam "Babylon (Hey Nah)" and the oddly majestic father-figure drama "SunSon(Dun)." All three of those tracks delve into some level of politics -- from the family to the community, onward and upward -- and their overt sonics are the equivalent of a defiant finger stabbing the air. It's downright inspiring at times. Likewise, "Stress!!" and "God In You" have moments of memorable clarity, too. (A humble suggestion to the rapper: A lyrics sheet would be nice.)
The Roots comparison -- if applied only as a metric for Kokayi's long-term prospects -- is more appropriate for the less-overt tracks, including "DCB," "Life," "Arg You!" and "Gamesteady," all of which lean heavily toward contemporary R&B or downtempo sounds. He's definitely got the touch: Even when his hooks are subtle, they show his urge to be impeccably current. (On the abstract end of things, "Love Ya Babe" almost verges on Radiohead's territory.) For now, Kokayi's biggest hit, in any form, is "Midnight Rendezvous," the house-flavored single by Bowie, Md., singer Wayna, which is kicking around on a Billboard chart or two. Methinks the mighty ?uestlove -- as a hip-hop grownup with a few creative detours from his Roots resume -- would approve.
Mass Instructions is available from CDBaby and on iTunes.
Previous Wednesday's Reviews: The Sword | Fuck Buttons | Cadence Weapon | Paul Oakenfold
Comments