Twenty-one years is a long time to wait for anything. That’s a fetus finally being able to ditch his/her fake ID and get into a bar legally. For Grandmaster Flash, twenty-one years is the length of time between his last studio album and his most recent one. He hasn’t been a ghost during that tenure, of course, choosing instead to spend his time mixing, producing and releasing a handful of remix/reprise records along the way. But the legend of Grandmaster Flash cannot be scoffed at. Long before I accepted hip hop as a legitimate musical form I knew and respected the deejay’s body of work, no matter how shallow my knowledge of it was. But in such a gap, the entire face of the genre and industry has undergone more facelifts than the King of Pop. So the natural (and easy) question is: can Grandmaster Flash thrive in the modern world?
To be fair, it’s a loaded question. Time and trend has nothing to do with quality of work. Naturally, the temptation to label certain efforts as old school and new school is strong, but even as an innovator, it’s a difficult task for Flash to keep up with the contemporaries. Considering some of the dreadful directions that the genre has traversed, he should be commended for sticking to his principles and craftsmanship. But he hasn’t been a resilient force as studio leader and marksman during the gap; he preferred to be behind the scenes, a silent partner in a world that gets louder every year with weaker and weaker MCs trying to grab the spotlight. They used to boast about surviving, now they boast about clothing lines and multi-tiered swimming pools, Such frivolities ought not distress Mr. Saddler, but since he titled his long-awaited return to the studio, The Bridge: Concept of a Culture, it’s clear that he aims to mix message with lesson on the past, present and future of his musical livelihood, but mostly to showcase a large and eclectic sampling of that way of life. But what we end up with is a series of unfocused snapshots of what’s wrong with hip hop as a whole.
Like Common’s recent Universal Mind Control, the enormous disappointment of this effort stems about equally from the trifecta of hope, hype and expectations as it does what ends up flowing out of the speakers. The importance and legacy of both Grandmaster Flash and Common are both sealed, but trying to keep up with the Joneses leads to far more painful clichés and headache-inducing disasters than emblematic reflections. Coming from any artist, this is a far below average entry, but coming from Flash, it can’t be viewed as anything but an unmitigated failure. Like Common, Grandmaster Flash doesn’t sound comfortable in these clothes and any attempt to play to his old strengths sounds miserable alone and even worse in context.
Guilty of at least two of hip hop albums’ three cardinal sins—overlength, a tiresome abundance of guests and pointless skits/interludes—The Bridge lacks focus, purpose, consistency and memorable moments. It may not be as reprehensible as, say, irritating fall guy Soulja Boy’s discs, but it’s an even bigger mess. Some might commend Flash for wearing several different aesthetic outfits on this epic effort, but just because it doesn’t become wholly repetitive doesn’t mean that most of his choices are greeted by anything better than shrugs (and usually worse than that).
Without a modus operandi or unifying style, The Bridge amounts to the strength of the individual cuts. On that, this one comes up well short. “Shine All Day” features Q-Tip in the lead role and sounds like a leftover from his recent Renaissance success. Mixing the maudlin and the masochistic, it’s a cross section of professions of love and devotion with mentions of shorties and booties. The synths are a little flat and Q-Tip sounds more bored than laidback, yet it ends up being one of the least disposable of the bunch. It’s also interesting to hear someone try to rhyme “orange,” but coming up with near-rhymes like “almonds” and “porridge” emphasizes the fact that it sounds like they’re trying too hard.
If you think that Q-Tip’s presence hints at a strong selection of guests, you wouldn’t be mistaken before pooping this into your player. He finds room for famous MCs from a long span, including Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, KRS-One and Big Daddy Kane. But Snoop Dogg sounds like he’s on autopilot even more than Q-Tip, drawling lazily across “Swagger,” a song whose title warns you that it’s in uncomfortable territory for Flash (add to that Lynda Carter’s grating squeak vocals as a counterpoint and you’ve got a debacle). And Big Daddy Kane doesn’t show off his flair for great flow and rhymes, instead settling for silkily drab sub-romanticism opposite Hedonis Da Amazon. It’s better than either of the famously awful Ja Rule/Ashanti duets, but not as much as you’d wish.
Flash’s deejay skills are on better display when he unites modern science with 80s trends. “Tribute to the Breakdancer” and “Here Come My DJ” feature some of the album’s more interesting productions. The former wraps soaring beats and hints of digi-hooks around the flashy ensemble and the latter contains one of the only instances of scratching, but both are botched by uninspired mic leadership. The rhymes of the former are uninspired and the hey-ho shouting of DJs Kool and Demo on the latter are just tedious.
Comparably, those two are choice cuts next to what’s on the menu during the second half. “Unpredictable” wastes the second appearance from Big Daddy Kane and “Bronx Bombers” mixes electronics and tough-guy posturing into a whole that tries to flaunt the strut of dread in entirely unoriginal ways. Worse still (and worst overall) is a pair of similar and similarly unbearable efforts that also pop up on this side. Terribly tacky and redundant, the arrangements of “Those Chix” and “Can I Take You Higher” shouldn’t even fill up a fans-only B-side throwaway, but with poorly-coordinated lady MCs laying out a series of jaw-droppingly bad verses on top, the skip button will become your savior.
It’s depressing that the man best known for “The Message” could come up with a seemingly endless full-length that seems to have no message at all. As a summation of myriad styles and sounds, it’s not broad enough to get away with a few missteps nor does the album’s flow suggest a natural evolution. Behind the turntables, Grandmaster Flash can’t be blamed for the poor showing on the mic from the wide range of guest rappers, but as a producer, he is responsible for what ended up on tape and what ended up on the album. If this is a desperate bid to prove his relevancy in today’s climate, he actually comes up short against a litter of sub-par artists. And if, by some unlikely happenstance, The Bridge is some tongue-in-cheek lampoon of what’s torturous of the genre, I gotta give him points for straight-faced satire. Still doesn’t make it worth a listen, though, let alone multiple ones to let the deadpan wisecracks sink in.
"The Bridge: Concept of a Culture" is on sale March 3, 2009 from Strut Records.
