Apathy really hasn't put a foot wrong in the lead up to his Honkey Kong release (August 23rd) with every track put out being nothing less than great. Apathy does a great job over the House of Pain track but he pretty much destroys 'Eye For An Eye' and shows exactly exactly how you do multisyllabic rhymes without them coming across as forced.
Impatient, sick of waiting, sick of pacing in my room, in syncopation with the shit i'm playing, feel it boom Sick of chasing, chick's i'm dating, dick 'em then i'm quickly skating Spittin insignificant ignorance mixed with information
Here we have a posse cut full of MC's who all share an Irish heritage with the track being released the day before Saint Patty's day. As expected the production is dominated by an Irish 'horn' sample and obligatory Irish references are included in the verses. Diabolic and Apathy (unsurprisingly) have the two best performances here, the 3 relative unknowns who make up the tracks middle are alright and Ryu and Mac Lethal finish the track off well enough. Decent, but nothing special.
Oh, and does anyone else think Paradime sounds like Joell Ortiz with an Irish accent?
Of all the rappers that complain about how wack other rappers are few do it as well as Apathy. Just check out his observation on 'grinding' in the songs intro and straight away you know you've found a breath of fresh air from all the manufactured image obsessed artists polluting the airwaves. As for the track itself, Apathy goes HAM for most of the first verse before easing off and spending the rest of the track on cruise control. Honkey Kong can't come soon enough.
Apathy decided to go in for 56 bars straight, over a classic Premo joint no less. Rising to the occasion Apathy comes through with a ridiculous flow, schemes, amazing imagery and (most importantly) a reference to 'The Office'!
Man it's critical to give credit nothing less than incredible Impress predecessors then they place you a pedestal Spit ridiculous shit or shit'll get ridiculed You MC's should dive in empty swimming pools
Shots are fired at the usual (but warranted as ever) targets; generic rap acts imitating the next big thing. Apparently Apathy has a full length release, Honkey Kong, coming out in the spring which i'll be eagerly awaiting.
Army of the Pharaohs debut album, TheTorture Papers (charming, I know), got straight down to business, opening the album up with this 6 minute long, 9 verse posse cut. Shuko produced the ‘epic’ feeling, string led beat, suited perfectly to the constant stream of MC’s laying down bar after bar. Vinnie Paz opens the track up with a little shit-talking hype up intro, about the only thing he does well anymore in my opinion. Unfortunately he decided he wasn’t done shit-talking and that the track would be all the better for having two more interludes throughout where Paz’ gets to display his extremely limited vocabulary by inserting ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ over and over. The aim was obviously to help break up the verses lest the track become too monotonous but a much better idea would have been to added some scratching and cuts which would have fit the tracks tone perfectly.
Now, getting to the actual verses, Apathy leads the track off and puts down one of the best verses from the album and undoubtedly the best verse on the track.
‘And if you're facin' us, block off a 30-block radius
I throw more blows than boxin' Dr. Octavius ’
Unfortunately the track goes through a bit of a flat patch afterwards with King Syze, Crypt The War Child, Des Devious and Esoteric all putting forward decent verses but nothing spectacular and you start to feel monotony set in. Yes, they all have aggressive deliveries and fairly good rhyme schemes but there’s no punch lines or even particularly clever/witty lines in general that stand-out. Luckily Chief Kamachi and Celph Titled are up next and help lift the standard with Celph’s witty exaggerative braggadocios style built for a track like this.
‘It’s the Army, we got power in numbers
And that's nines, .45's, .357's, and M-500’s ’
Planetary’s up next. He’s alright. Vinnie Paz then proceeds to close the track off in what I can only guess is some attempt to ‘save the best for last’. Of course, the day Vinnie Paz outshines Apathy or Celph Titled on a track is the day Immortal Technique becomes a Republican. So, in typical Paz’ style he spits a horrible verse where his flow doesn’t change once and he puts out the weakest rhyme schemes of anyone on the track. He does drop a gem on us though
‘That’s the reason that I'm fly like the life of a bird ’……..... -_-
All Vinnie Paz hate aside the track’s actually quite good and well worth a listen
