by John Bear
Daily Lobo
Before I sit down to write a hip-hop review, I make hip-hop beats.
Having acquired beat-writing software from a friend who was tragically killed by rebels in a remote Peruvian village, I find it necessary to the writing process that I suffer the endlessly repeating realization that I possess no amount of measurable musical talent. It aids in the bitter metamorphosis required to transform from ordinary human schlub to venom-spitting dynamo.
But, enough about me. AWOL One's latest lyrical lidocaine overdose, The War of Art, finds the artist continuing on the clever wordplay album title melee he began with Souldoubt.
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He's back. He's spitting those heavily sedate, occasionally rhyming lyrics tinged with a note of strange desperation. If you haven't heard AWOL One, he is the "Forrest Gump" of rapdom. If you were to get America's most lovable movie moron exceedingly drunk, tell him Jenny is dead, then throw him down a well and record the occasional unintentional nugget of wisdom, the end result would be something fairly close to an AWOL record. And like his celluloid simpleton counterpart, AWOL's brain-injury manner of speaking - kind of amusing for a few minutes - quickly begins to wear thin on the nerves.
I remember how endearing "Forrest Gump" was the first time I saw it. The second time, a nervous tick emerged in my left cheek. By the third time, I was strapping dynamite to my chest and making tracks for the Special Olympics. The same thing is
happening to me as I bump The War of Art. It is fun right now, but violence is feared.
It would be an exercise in futility to deny that AWOL possesses a truly original voice and lyrical style. But Hitler was a mass murdering, crystal-meth abusing, vegetarian, sex maniac with a stupid mustache and notoriously bad gas. Needless to say, original is not necessarily a good thing. Not that I am comparing this strange little rapper to a sick freak like Adolf Hitler. All I am saying is AWOL may have gone a little too far on an experimental tangent.
And what a lazy tangent it is. The record sounds like it was made during one late night recording session full of weed and malt liquor. The spacey, highly electronic production is at best half-assed and tends to leave the eyelids feeling heavy after about 15 minutes of listening. KRS-One shows up to drop a forgettable cameo as do 2Mex, Eyedea and a few other unknowns.
Overall, The War of Art is much like "Forrest Gump" - amusing for a minute or two, but I would have been better off just renting "Platoon" again.
