BUSDRIVER – Road Kill Overcoat
Busdriver spits internal rhymes and metaphors at machine-gun rates with great ease. I have no doubt he ties his shoelaces, dresses himself, and drives to work using only the sheer strength and agility of his tongue. But it is how Busdriver manages to pack an encyclopedia-worth of information into Road Kill Overcoat, his fifth release.
Pick a line, listen to it five times. It’s so dense, I bet you’ll learn something new each time. True, not everyone wants to work for their hip-hop. But that’s why this album isn’t for everyone — it’s for the folks who will hit “repeat” in order to understand the biting social commentary and wisdom buried in SAT vocab. And Busdriver clearly knows this: featuring psych-folk queen Bianca Casady on a hip-hop album is never an attempt to “go mainstream.” And check the love-hate stanza of his first track: “I negate the myth of the ‘great black boyfriend’/in the Polaroid at the get-together/wearing a corduroy vest-sweater.” Ouch. I’d never want this man on my bad side, in fear that he’d slice open all my issues with surgical precision (and then make a song out of it, record it, and sell it on an album nationwide). But Busdriver is deep and heartfelt, even when he is dicing apart his white girlfriend’s racial prejudices about himself in ABB rhyme schemes.
At the jump, RKO turns personal and reflective with the flip in “Secret Skin,” lyrically one of the tightest pieces in the album. And by the end, it’s clear his criticisms are tied to love for his community, and far from a bandwagon rant against hippies, the government, or whitey.
Busdriver’s speed-rapping may get in the way for some listeners, and his hooks with few exceptions aren’t so memorable. But interestingly, in his speed, his vowel sounds and vocal range become an instrument-like melody against tight, conceptual production. As a result, even those who choose not to stare at the jacket lyrics can hear an entire song. Wow, look: something for everyone.
(Anti, 2798 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026)
