Kool Keith: Spankmaster : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Kool Keith is the sort of character most sci-fi writers could not invent: He rhymes about ho's in diapers and takes old-school-style shots at New York rap personalities and the NBA, all over a strangely bleeping, futuristic bass-scape. For his latest booty-obsessed B-boy opus, Keith has hooked up with the subterranean horror-metal rapper Esham, and he's broadcasting from beyond the edge of what we politely call civilization - from Detroit, that is. The wobbly, synthetic electrojam "Jewelry Shine" is particularly Motor City-damaged and deserves to become a monster dance-floor hit far beyond Detroit Rock City limits. "Maxin in the Shade,'' meanwhile, is hilarious, vintage Keith: just a raw burbling synth-and-drum track and the rapper putting a pretentious girl in her place by suggesting that she needs "to see how McDonald's feel'' by discussing her hairstyle with the "Cheese Burglar.'' Spankmaster is always anarchic and bizarre, but Kool Keith has only stayed true to the homemade, gut-busting surrealism that animated early rap. He simply believes that hip-hop isn't about anything at all unless it's about getting really, really freaky.

PAT BLASHILL
(RS 875 - August 16, 2001)