Blakroc London Guardian Album Review

The London Guardian/Observer reviews the upcoming Blakroc (Dame Dash & The Black Keys) project and gives it 4 out five stars.

Blakroc arrives in stores November 27.

For a while rap/rock collaborations were an easy way to double your fun, at least during the late 80s and early 90s, when Run DMC and Aerosmith's Walk This Way and Public Enemy and Anthrax's Bring the Noise instantly located fertile common ground – hedonism and unfocused rage respectively. Then the soundtrack to forgettable 1993 action flick Judgment Night ruined everything, pairing Ice-T with Slayer, Faith No More with giant Samoan hip-hop crew Boo Yaa Tribe, in the process inventing the most justifiably maligned genre of recent years: nu metal. From there on in, the whole notion was hijacked by white men dressing and behaving like toddlers, waddling around in over-sized shorts and shouting rude words. Linkin Park's album with Jay-Z might have sold well but you wouldn't want to listen to it unless you were cross about being made to tidy your room.

Wisely, Blakroc – a rough'n'ready project comprised of white blues duo the Black Keys and a roster of MCs, including the RZA, Mos Def and, from beyond the grave, Ol' Dirty Bastard – take things right back to basics. The premise is simple, but effective. The Black Keys knock out a lo-fi riff, the rappers strut about, sticking to the themes that have preoccupied both bluesmen and MCs throughout the years, notably sex, heartbreak and cash. Star turns include Ludacris and ODB leering all over Coochie, and R&B singer and former Missy Elliott protégée Nicole Wray swaggering through Done Did It, with help from Baltimore newcomer NOE, whose Jay-Z impression is so spot-on he could well be the hip-hop Alistair McGowan. The loose, spontaneous nature of the exercise means there's the odd dud, but there are far more hits than misses. The result? A dead concept is temporarily revived.

(source)