Random Axe, a hip-hop supergroup teaming Brooklyn's Sean Price with Detroit's Guilty Simpson and Black Milk, was announced in 2008. When Pitchfork spoke to Milk two years ago, he said Random Axe's debut album was 80% complete, which means either a) the group left a number of old tunes on the cutting floor and started nearly from scratch or b) it really took them 24 months to hash out one-fifth of an album. Random Axe is officially here, but it doesn't sound like the kind of product sprung from years of work.
The group addresses its mission statement early on, as Price rhymes, "No love-letter rhymes and raps about chicks/ Just whole lot of druggin' and thuggin', that's it." Single-mindedness aside, all three rappers are very good at what they do here. Simpson, with his no-frills wordplay, makes for an exceptional supporting player, and even sounds inspired on "Never Back Down". Milk brings his skill as a producer over to his rapping, applying a percussive flow. As for Price, he's already well-noted for a wickedly dark sense of humor, using tricky internal rhyme patterns to levy his hilarious threats.
Milk makes all the album's beats, which range from fair to excellent. He chops and flips samples with a studious flair, while drums, no matter how dirty and muffled, all thump like kicks to the chest. The visceral "The Hex" is interrupted by live drum fills, while an eerie twinkle floats over the staccato drums of "The Karate Kid". But a producer's job is more than making beats and recording vocals. It's also about drawing the best performances from all of the album's participants, and Random Axe feels carelessly phoned in at times.
Most of the songs on Random Axe follow an uncomplicated template: Spit 16 bars and get the fuck out of the way. The only track that deviates from this formula is "Everybody Nobody Somebody", where each rapper takes a word from the song's title and uses it as the root of their verse on the song, with limp results. In fact, the most surprising lyrical moments on the album come when Price, notorious for his thug persona, says both that he's happily married and no longer smokes weed. The members of another rap supergroup, Slaughterhouse, sound like four solo rappers on the same song-- clearly failing to grasp the concept of the word "group"-- but at least they make a concentrated effort to out-rap each other. On Random Axe, the verses are reliably good, but the tedium of clock punching replaces the spirit of competition.
The quality improves in every category when the album's two biggest guest stars join the proceedings. Over the high-pitched West Coast gangsta-rap synths of "Jahphy Joe", Random Axe is joined by recent Fool's Gold signee Danny Brown, whose pill-popping lunacy is infectious. The album's shining moment, "Chewbacca", is heightened by the appearance of New York rap phenomenon Roc Marciano, whose economical rhyming shakes both Simpson and Price into focus with their own verses, while Milk's beat manages to render a glittery synth sample into a threatening clarion call. It makes you wonder what would have happened if all of Random Axe carried this same sense of urgency. For one, the album probably wouldn't have taken Milk, Price, and Simpson nearly three years to complete. But more importantly, it might have ended up being the classic fans were waiting so long for.
