On 2005's
Three Piece Puzzle
,
Jneiro Jarel
seemed content to be what he was in a physical sense, a Brooklyn-based MC and producer making genre-bending, boundary-pushing music. Apparently that wasn't enough.
Jarel
decided to indulge every eccentricity on
Craft of the Lost Art
and it worked, the way a mad scientist or genius engineer makes a stopgap, multi-part invention work. The sonic culprits are a make-believe supergroup
named
Shape of Broad Minds
, which is actually
playing several characters:
Jawwaad
, the Houston-raised multi-instrumentalist (keyboards, trumpet);
Rocque Won
, a West Coast singer in the psychedelic vein of
Jimi Hendrix
and
Prince
; and, of course, Philadelphian
Dr. Who Dat?
, a beat-digger and studio maestro. This schizophrenic group allows
Panama Black
, an MC from Atlanta, to explore with them. On the first cut,
"Gorilla Mash,"
appropriates a combative version of the
James Bond
theme (or
Spy Hunter
theme, depending on what generation you rep) and advises, "Put on your wet suits, we 'bout to dive up in here." For the rest of the album,
's multi-personalty crew provides a cacophony of distant sounds, ambiguous samples (where he tends to morph singers' ad libs as opposed to speed them up as most hip-hop producers do), hard rock riffs, and jarring drum tracks. He's also not afraid of songs with several bridges and shifting arrangements, perhaps exemplified by
"Changes,"
maybe the album's best cut. It's a level of improvisation and creativity that characterizes only the best albums. His weirded-out crooning on
"OPR8R"
is the perfect layer to add to production that is at once disorienting and in the cut. The album also features what seems to be a burgeoning crew of similar broad minds with
Count Bass D
, the venerable
MF Doom
Stacy Epps
, and
John Robinson
showing up as guests. This is an exploratory album, with no terrain off limits. These travels and
's curiosities are producing some of hip-hop's most challenging music as the first decade of the new millennium comes to a close. ~ Vincent Thomas