 |
Buy this album
|
|
In a time when Britain can represent with MCs like Blade and Roots Manuva, the old mockeries of British hip-hop should be officially put to rest. Yes, we should even forgive and forget the Wee Papa Girls. To a large extent, we have Tricky to thank for this; the man didn't just transmogrify hip-hop into trip-hop, he recast it in his own idiom, as it were, and continues to reinvent that idiom as it suits him (very much in the metamorphic hip-hop tradition). Not to deny the Baby Namboos, Tricky's latest pet project, their own musical identity; they are by turns gritty and mellifluous, with a complex shifting sound. Tricky's family affairs have formerly included an uncle, Finley Quaye; this time a cousin out of New York (hip-hop's birthplace), Mark Porter, masterminds the project, with production credited to Tony Quigley and the Baby Namboos, and creates a nucleus that grows to encompass a wide range of contributors. These contributors include Tricky, who manages to smudge his fingerprints on the album, for better and for worse.
With Tricky, however, the result derives from the drive of a self-determined iconoclast, whereas the Baby Namboos project comes with a more collective sound system which bounds between melody and tension. The opening track, "Hard Times," announces its presence with a manic, clock-ticking drumbeat punctuated with a stab of a guitar chord. The track kicks in the bass and drum roll that will become the main beat, along with the menacing rasp of female vocalist Aurora Borealis intoning, "Your inner scream haunts me / It tantalizes and taunts me." The track smooths out, continuing with wounded vocals, but the song's first minute leaves an aftertaste that lasts the rest of the album.
Aurora's voice permeates a good deal of the album and scathes like rough scotch. Hers is a voice self-mutilated, one that could be smooth if only she had any interest in such trifles. Instead, Aurora Borealis comes dangerously close to croaking out of range at times, lilting her voice with an almost Cockney flippancy at others. The voice is too distinctive to please everyone, but it anchors the album with a solid presence when the lyrics don't drift into trip-hop's melancholy platitudes. Borealis shines on "Holy," a labyrinthine spiritual quest backed by production that ebbs and flows with back-alley dread. Her self-defined spirituality on the track fits in well with the urban mood of the album, where rules are not passed down by institutions but rather become worked out as a matter of course in life.
"Holy" also shows off the synergy of the crew. While the beat lurks in the shadows during Aurora's vocals, a driving drum beat kicks in with Leo Coleing's pronouncement that "Under no illusion / I reserve the right to be incorrect sometimes" (a sentiment perhaps fittingly attributed to Tricky). The album certainly amounts to more than mournful platitudes. Leo Coleing and Tricky lay down vocals, at times in orthodox hip-hop rhymes and other times languorously talking along with the track. The title track exemplifies the cohesion of every element, with Tricky, Coleing and Claude Williams rapping urban politics over a rumbling track and Aurora bringing in the end with a vocal blend that is by turns smooth and harsh, reflecting on death's shadow and race relations. In phases of levity and solemnity, Coleing and Williams explore life as an everyday struggle and celebration, without the complex burden of Tricky's neuroses weighing things down, save for one track. On most of the album, Tricky's voice rasps with a welcome familiarity, but "Provoked," which begins lovely, with a soft guitar melody, then segues into a slow drum beat and Tricky repeating verses we've heard before on Angels With Dirty Faces' "Analyze Me". Much of Tricky's invention lies in reinvention, of course, from Maxinquaye on down the line, but this repetition of intensely personal lyrics fits badly into the notion of a group collective.
Baby Namboos can in fact lay claim to Bristol's sound system par excellence, the Wild Bunch (which spawned Massive Attack, Portishead and others), with its inclusion of Claude Williams, who starred as MC Willie Wee back in the day. Collaborations also extend to a few remixes of the title track, one in which Portishead's Geoff Barrow scratches in a hook à la DJ Premier and sets in a mellow piano track and ethereal kung-fu noise effects. Dillinja reworks the track with a fairly average drum 'n' bass effort that retains the atmosphere but throws out all the vocals save Aurora Borealis', building up the percussion attack with deliberate precision.
Ancoats2Zambia's primary strength can be found in its blend of personalities, which takes the album from goofing on an intro track to hitting depths of contemplation, all along the street from New York to Bristol. One can almost imagine Tricky back in his Massive Attack days, when his gruff voice complemented rather than coiled around the main mic. In today's world, distinct genres are a rapidly dying species, and multifaceted fusions of dub, hip-hop and other roots music like the Baby Namboos' will only hasten the extinction.
Eric Solomon | January 25, 2000
|
