Czarface & MF Doom - Super What? LP

Silver Age (2021)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

Most Wednesdays I write up something about an album from around 1988 - 1994, what I consider to be the best time for hip hop.  Lately I've been finding the occasional record that was released as late as say 1995 that I hear for the first time or rediscover.  Those are momentous occasions.  But today we go even crazier.  This album came out this year.   And I like it.  Will wonders never cease.

Czarface and MF Doom have collaborated on an album before, but Super What? is my first time dipping my toe into that pool.  I've never listened to Czarface before as I knew Inspectah Deck from Wu Tang was involved and I've never been a Wu Tang fan to be honest.  As far as MF Doom goes, I love his work with KMD from the 90s, but his other work is more hit and miss for me.  I'm not sure what made me go take a listen to this new release, but I'm glad I did.

My biggest beef with modern hip hop is that I find the beats to be weak and uninspired.  I can't really get down with minimalism in hip hop as I need the big bass lines and boom bap snare cracks to connect.  Super What? has the sort of production work that I really can get behind weaving in classic 90s vibes that Czarface (mostly) and MF Doom (here and there) lay down colorful verses and interesting rhyming patterns.  You're going to get my attention if you drop a lyric about pro wrestler Orange Cassidy.  It's a short album, maybe even too short.  But the quality that they maintain from start to finish is quite astounding.

Not only is this the best new hip hop album I've heard in years and years, I'm impressed enough that I plan on seeking out some other Czarface albums to see if this was a one off anomaly, or if there's finally new hip hop I can pay attention to.

Czarface & MF Doom - Super What?:

https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mYAXEFn5fxMQqqZ2huvNamnAgxqUaLgdQ