From the bizarre lyrics to his concord-speed delivery to the avant-garde breaks and samples used, everything about Busdriver: Fear of a Black Tangent is wonderfully strange. And this is refreshing to my ears, which have heard much sameness lately, even from other indie rappers.
The title is obviously a parody of the Public Enemy record, but it couldn’t be more aptly titled. His raps ramble from talking about being attacked for naming his album thusly, to needing to replace the breaks in his Honda Civic in the tune Happiness (‘s Unit of Measurement) and continue to sprout off in different directions throughout the whole album. At times listening to Busdriver is like Blackalicious has been caught in a Dali painting, fighting to get out.
He’s self reflective; “Why did I choose to do weird shit / I steered my career of a cliff / in a flaming car” he raps in Cool Band Buzz. He’s witty as in Lefty’s Lament where he asks “Why do you hate me? Is it my numerous releases on Ninja Tune or my on going fling with Reese Witherspoon?… It’s because I made my hiphop cookies and didn’t let you lick the spoon”. The delivery is usually ultra quick, and because of this it’s not like the usual in-your-face rapping style we’re accustomed to, but sneaks up on you and the meaning jumps out when you’re least expecting it.
The music behind the fast spoken vocals moves from typical indie styled hiphop beats, to almost drum and bass styled beats to plinky plonk circus sounds, produced by the likes of Daedelus, Nobody, Prefuse 73 and Danger Mouse, no strangers to the abstract hiphop themselves. Like the lyrics, they force your brain to fly from tangent to tangent, challenging the listener with changes in tempo and key, with strange samples that conflict then conform to the rest of the tune.
A lot of people won’t get this. They won’t be able to get beyond the too-fast rapping and the crazy music behind the tracks. It is quite possibly too abstract. It took me a few listens to begin to understand and appreciate it. But like a surrealist painting, each time you approach it you’ll find something new. This is art, designed not to be consumed all at once, but to be savoured over many listenings. And it is well worth investing your time into this.