Record Exchange Boise

Reviews:

Though suspect both aesthetically and ideologically, Dr. Dre's post-NWA transformation of P-Funk groovalisticality into humid easy-listening for potheads was so thick a clump of manure that variegated rhythmic vegetation should've sprouted instantly. Instead Hip-Hop America mistook The Chronic for a masterpiece and G-funk second-stringers reminded us that the sincerest form of flattery is often the lamest incitement to snooze. But there are producers among us worthy of scripting the next episode, and if you need their cell numbers the laid-back Houston weed-fiend on the mic here's got 'em. On the title track, for instance, Oonoe Biass dissipates Devin's chorus into vocodered miasma and that same ol' Bernie Worrell synth whine roams far past Cali rap clichil it resonates like some lonesome Morricone desert whistle.

All this would be merely diverting if Devin himself hadn't crafted a persona perhaps unique in hip-hop-his wiles no match for his bad luck, his misfortune no match for his smartass self-deprecation. Whether stonewalling a jealous girlfriend or insisting to a roadside cop that pungent aroma is coffee not sticky-icky-icky, he's as unflappable as he is unsuccessful. His close, canny attention to vowels enriches both his unfolding ingenuity ("I'm higher/ Than a thumbtack on a flier/ Of Reba McEntire/ In the hood" ) and patent absurdity ("Last month I pawned seventeen sewing machines.") And "Briarpatch," a haunting reworking of the Brer Rabbit story, is a reminder that dope fumes don't always make you giggle and Devin's trickster cunning sprouts from a tradition even darker and bloodier than gangsta's mellow dramas.