UG Fiend
09-16-2003, 08:33 AM
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/v/vaughn_viktor/vaudeville-villain.shtml
Viktor Vaughn
Vaudeville Villain
[Sound-Ink; 2003]
Rating: 9.1
MF Doom is an ever-evolving oddity. Originally starting his career spouting bouncy Brand Nubian-esque black power verses with his late brother Subroc and rapper Onyx as the collective KMD, Daniel Dumile eventually gained weight, smoked hallucinogens, drank libations, and developed a new style to match his rapidly deteriorating voice. Now, in a new arena of arrhythmia and soft beats, MF Doom staggers into the telephone booth and falls out as Viktor Vaughn.
A joint project between Doom and Sound-Ink, the concept of this album basically follows the everyday life of super-villain/beat scientist/drug dealer/stick-up kid Vik Vaughn. And yes, it does play out much like any other Metal Fingers project. His sick flow is tied to a fractured cadence, a slurry, guttural delivery, obscure pop culture references ("Unfrozen caveman, look over the contracts") and beautifully simple idioms and metaphors. And although best known for his more whimsical material, Doom can also come off like Wu without the pretension. The album works based on his style alone, but now, Dumile branches out from this launch pad into deeper song structure (choruses!) and surprisingly focused topical and narrative tracks.
The pieces run a larger variety of topics than the shit-talking he mastered on Operation: Doomsday. Situations faced by our favorite masked rhymer this side of Ghostface's '93 fencing getup include the courtship of an underage girl ("Let Me Watch" with Apani B. Fly Emcee), a drug deal gone horribly awry ("Lactose and Lecithin"), an argument with a Chinese restaurant owner ("Raedawn") and the hilarious gunning down of a lame open mic night. While most underground emcees are completely content to rhyme about how intelligent they are, how commercialism is the devil, and how everyone needs to be more conscious, Vik finds the perfect balance between complex songs and simple delivery, never laying a guilt trip on you.
There's no exaggeration made when you hear someone referring to Metal Fingers as one of the best writers in rap. Taking a tired theme like robbing people and turning it from a ghetto cliché into a comedic spectacle, "Modern Day Mugging" has Doom delivering a how-to for all aspiring thugs and thugettes. He only carries a .45 with "no bullets, no clip" that has "black electrical tape over the hole in the handle" but still manages to cause a fellow citizen to "run his chain like an errand." After detailing the clever ways thieves break into places, he plays the fall guy by getting shot by an old lady he's mugging, claiming "he woulda let her have it if he had the ammo."
In another example of Dumile's pen prowess, he teams up with former Anti-Pop Consortium rhymesayer M. Saayid for a film-worthy adventure through their cartoonish education ("Never Dead"). Doom claims that "if I don't study, I'ma cheat off Peter Parker," and then teams up with schoolmate Saayid to run and gun on a search for Doom's stolen Donkey Kong game. At one point, they go to Chinatown, buy fireworks and indulge in Guyanese strippers-- that is, until Doom finds a guru that teaches him "that the roach is never dead," hypothetically cultivating the future super scientist this album is based on. Songwriting doesn't get this lush, detailed or interesting in hip-hop much these days, but it's no surprise that the best songs in the genre are coming from an 80s transplant that claims to be "a really big fan of Dan Aykroyd."
As expected on an album from one of the current greats, the soundscapes on Vaudeville Villain fail to keep pace with the classic lines being dropped left and right. Being the first album of Doom's with none of his own production, it's apparent that he sounds better over his own work. The relatively unknown producers (King Honey, Max Bill, Heat Sensor) help the album blend together well, but fail to completely capture a sound that suits Doom's drunken master assault. But they do their most base job well, nonetheless, establishing a dark mood that stands reminiscent of Doom's own "Hey!" Heat Sensor's "Raedawn" is an electronic burner that writhes and lurches like a malfunctioning robot, stuttering from out of a pit of molten drums and sinister bells, while King Honey's "Let Me Watch" is a pier-walking rock skip across the ocean, equipped with a Prince Paul-ian lumbering jazz loop laced with a well-paced bassline.
Still, it's no surprise that it's the biggest name who provides the album's showstopper: arguably the hottest producer in the underground today, Ohio's Rjd2 drops the freelance hammer on "Saliva", delivering a triumphant string section, jubilant vocal sample and bombastic horns across a subtle breakbeat backdrop. Doom steps up to bat, claiming he "stays bent like Scoliosis" and thinks that crews "need to just shut the fuck up like Silent Bob."
Despite its admittedly slight flaws, Vaudeville Villain easily beats out Dumile's own King Geedorah album as his major contender for album-of-the-year. Unless his collaboration with Madlib (MadVillain) and his official MF Doom album on Rhymesayers (MM FOOD) prove to be completely perfect ventures-- and perhaps even if they do-- this album will come out among 2003's greatest.
-Rollie Pemberton, September 16th, 2003
The man is doin' it. Forgot about the solo with Rhymesayers.
Viktor Vaughn
Vaudeville Villain
[Sound-Ink; 2003]
Rating: 9.1
MF Doom is an ever-evolving oddity. Originally starting his career spouting bouncy Brand Nubian-esque black power verses with his late brother Subroc and rapper Onyx as the collective KMD, Daniel Dumile eventually gained weight, smoked hallucinogens, drank libations, and developed a new style to match his rapidly deteriorating voice. Now, in a new arena of arrhythmia and soft beats, MF Doom staggers into the telephone booth and falls out as Viktor Vaughn.
A joint project between Doom and Sound-Ink, the concept of this album basically follows the everyday life of super-villain/beat scientist/drug dealer/stick-up kid Vik Vaughn. And yes, it does play out much like any other Metal Fingers project. His sick flow is tied to a fractured cadence, a slurry, guttural delivery, obscure pop culture references ("Unfrozen caveman, look over the contracts") and beautifully simple idioms and metaphors. And although best known for his more whimsical material, Doom can also come off like Wu without the pretension. The album works based on his style alone, but now, Dumile branches out from this launch pad into deeper song structure (choruses!) and surprisingly focused topical and narrative tracks.
The pieces run a larger variety of topics than the shit-talking he mastered on Operation: Doomsday. Situations faced by our favorite masked rhymer this side of Ghostface's '93 fencing getup include the courtship of an underage girl ("Let Me Watch" with Apani B. Fly Emcee), a drug deal gone horribly awry ("Lactose and Lecithin"), an argument with a Chinese restaurant owner ("Raedawn") and the hilarious gunning down of a lame open mic night. While most underground emcees are completely content to rhyme about how intelligent they are, how commercialism is the devil, and how everyone needs to be more conscious, Vik finds the perfect balance between complex songs and simple delivery, never laying a guilt trip on you.
There's no exaggeration made when you hear someone referring to Metal Fingers as one of the best writers in rap. Taking a tired theme like robbing people and turning it from a ghetto cliché into a comedic spectacle, "Modern Day Mugging" has Doom delivering a how-to for all aspiring thugs and thugettes. He only carries a .45 with "no bullets, no clip" that has "black electrical tape over the hole in the handle" but still manages to cause a fellow citizen to "run his chain like an errand." After detailing the clever ways thieves break into places, he plays the fall guy by getting shot by an old lady he's mugging, claiming "he woulda let her have it if he had the ammo."
In another example of Dumile's pen prowess, he teams up with former Anti-Pop Consortium rhymesayer M. Saayid for a film-worthy adventure through their cartoonish education ("Never Dead"). Doom claims that "if I don't study, I'ma cheat off Peter Parker," and then teams up with schoolmate Saayid to run and gun on a search for Doom's stolen Donkey Kong game. At one point, they go to Chinatown, buy fireworks and indulge in Guyanese strippers-- that is, until Doom finds a guru that teaches him "that the roach is never dead," hypothetically cultivating the future super scientist this album is based on. Songwriting doesn't get this lush, detailed or interesting in hip-hop much these days, but it's no surprise that the best songs in the genre are coming from an 80s transplant that claims to be "a really big fan of Dan Aykroyd."
As expected on an album from one of the current greats, the soundscapes on Vaudeville Villain fail to keep pace with the classic lines being dropped left and right. Being the first album of Doom's with none of his own production, it's apparent that he sounds better over his own work. The relatively unknown producers (King Honey, Max Bill, Heat Sensor) help the album blend together well, but fail to completely capture a sound that suits Doom's drunken master assault. But they do their most base job well, nonetheless, establishing a dark mood that stands reminiscent of Doom's own "Hey!" Heat Sensor's "Raedawn" is an electronic burner that writhes and lurches like a malfunctioning robot, stuttering from out of a pit of molten drums and sinister bells, while King Honey's "Let Me Watch" is a pier-walking rock skip across the ocean, equipped with a Prince Paul-ian lumbering jazz loop laced with a well-paced bassline.
Still, it's no surprise that it's the biggest name who provides the album's showstopper: arguably the hottest producer in the underground today, Ohio's Rjd2 drops the freelance hammer on "Saliva", delivering a triumphant string section, jubilant vocal sample and bombastic horns across a subtle breakbeat backdrop. Doom steps up to bat, claiming he "stays bent like Scoliosis" and thinks that crews "need to just shut the fuck up like Silent Bob."
Despite its admittedly slight flaws, Vaudeville Villain easily beats out Dumile's own King Geedorah album as his major contender for album-of-the-year. Unless his collaboration with Madlib (MadVillain) and his official MF Doom album on Rhymesayers (MM FOOD) prove to be completely perfect ventures-- and perhaps even if they do-- this album will come out among 2003's greatest.
-Rollie Pemberton, September 16th, 2003
The man is doin' it. Forgot about the solo with Rhymesayers.