The Last Drop

The Knux, Remind Me in 3 Days – Also long awaited but never forgotten. And definitely on my brain for some time. The final member of the holy hipster hip-hop triumvirate, I was eagerly awaiting this album and mozied on down to Amoeba to purchase. Sidenote – To those who remember the early days of this blog, particularly my residence in Atlanta, I must confess: Amoeba is edging close to my love and appreciation for Decatur CD. The customer service is nowhere near the same ( I still have love for Warren, mint juleps and girl scout cookies), but the selection is bar none. And both the Janelle Monae and Knux selections were under $10. Chew on that…

The album definitely met expectations and actually exceeded a few. For one, I’ve found the new generation of “underground” rappers and not actually good rappers. They are disenfranchised with current hip-hop, bored with the stalemate of collaboration authenticity in pop music (Madonna + Justin Timberlake = good? T-Pain + anyone = hit?), and more attuned to the indie music scene than to the changing landscape of lyrical lethalness. From all personal accounts, this has been my main drawback with the genre. The Knux are doing their part to debunk this theory. They are technically and stylistically good. And work well together. Even better than my beloved Cool Kids. They also hold court in actually talking about something – a prerequisite for college educated middle class rappers. Some songs are about having fun, some are about when life is going bad. In any case, you can following the meaning of each song. Sad to say, a hard thing to find nowadays (Wayne, I love you, but even you know that “A Mille” makes no sense). So, with two of the most critical pieces of music making done well, what else could you possibly ask for? Variety for starters. I get the whole “we just wannna rock” philosophy. I believe Run DMC started this way back when (pre-Aerosmith, ya dig) and The Knux are just carrying on the tradition. But the shock value and, ultimately, listenability (just like drinkability) suffer dramatically from the constant reference to an AC/DC hook. Much like Janelle Monae, they fall prey to their own creation. Which, in turn, makes the 17 song album start to feel tedious. Even if they are talking about something. This seems to be a common pitfall for the hipsters – give the people more than enough and let them sort it out. Yet, it is still very easy for these artists to play editor in the studio. Sometimes the best tool for writing is the eraser.