The Madd Rapper: Tell 'Em Why U Madd : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It pains me to say it, but hip-hop is ripe for parody. Hip-hoppers are self-confident, self-referential, self-serious, larger-than-life characters quick to urge each other to keep it real and then spit a mouthful about the Range Rover we own without even knowing where the Range store is.

But so far, only De La Soul have succeeded in being consciously satirical and making good music at the same time. Now comes the Madd Rapper with Tell 'Em Why U Madd, representing that large constituency of hip-hop-heads who are dead certain they're better than most professional MCs. The Madd Rapper is the king of all those who believe that a long-overdue record deal will, in a flash, make them rich and famous superheroes able to stick it to all the suckas who wouldn't let them in the club or give them their digits or that D+ so they wouldn't have to go to summer school again.

The Madd Rapper is Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, one of the many producers in Puffy's stable who was indispensable to Bad Boy during those championship seasons back when it was the New York Yankees of the hip-hop industry. The Madd Rapper persona arose on 1997 albums by the Notorious B.I.G., Puffy and Mase, in hilarious skits in which he epitomized the jealousy-consumed playa hater. (His career hasn't been all joking: Last year he assaulted a magazine editor after a hip-hop publication revealed his identity.)

Tell 'Em Why U Madd is an album of funky, cool-out hip-hop that gets funnier the more you know about hip-hop and the record industry. Other MCs incessantly tell you how decadently rich they are. The Madd Rapper tells you how broke he is, rhyming in the sort of hoarse death scream you'd make if you were falling from a tall building: "I see y'all coppin' it/I'm still rentin' it/I'm still borrowin'/If y'all still lendin' it. . . . This bullshit advance/Can't wait to start spendin' it." His voice is about as smooth as blackboard scraping, but he's got that natural comedic thing. "You wanna know why I'm mad?" he asks, " 'Cause this shit is worse than the streets! There don't be no fruit at my sessions! Some wild nigga that don't even speak no English engineering my shit!"The album is filled with guest spots - Mase, Puff, Raekwon, Busta, Jermaine Dupri and Eminem, continuing his spectacular rookie season with yet another offering from his twisted mind: "I'm sicker than Boy George/Picturing Michael Jackson in little boy's drawers/Shopping in toy stores. . . ."

But you can steal the Madd Rapper's stage about as easily as you can steal Flavor Flav's or Ol' Dirty's. He's a character among characters and holds up a shiny Range chrome hubcap in which hip-hop can see itself reflected, warts and all. One big complaint: The uproarious single "Art of Robbing" - on which Angelettie's sidekick 50 Cent took the Madd concept even further - didn't make it onto this album. Also, sometimes Angelettie's beats let him down - "How We Do" is stiff, and "Too Many Ho's" is clichéd. But the Madd Rapper's persona is platinum. (RS 822)

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