ST LUNATICS: Free City : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It's one of the unwritten laws of the rap game: Once an MC blows up, he's expected to angle the spotlight toward his crew. It's that time for Nelly, the St. Louis rapper whose sweetly sung rhymes and irrepressible bounce got the whole country hollering, "Ee-yah, ee-yah" last year. His back-home boys are the St. Lunatics, a rowdy gaggle of proficient rhyme sayers whose world revolves around Lincoln Navigators with twenty-inch rims, chicks in low-cut capris and demonstrations of Show-Me State pride. Free City has all the sparkly, booming beats and top-down abandon of Nelly's Country Grammar; still, Ali, City Spud, KyJuan and Murphy Lee aren't about to snatch their ringleader's crown. Instead, they sell themselves in a more humble fashion, rambling over relentless bass bumps with an appealing down-home looseness and letting Nelly's singsong verses work their voodoo. Free City isn't a hip-hop classic, but it's a fun crash course on how the Midwest rides.

KATHRYN MCGUIRE
(RS 872 July 5, 2001)