A word of advice to all would-be musicians: the manifesto, while it has certainly proved its worth to terrorists and psychopaths alike, may be one literary form to steer clear of when slapping together that first album. Just ask veteran MC Aceyalone.
Aceyalone has made a career as something of a hip-hop missionary. In 1991, he appeared on a scene flooded with gangsta-rap wannabes as a member of the L.A.-based Freestyle Fellowship. The Fellowship would eventually grow to the status of underground legends by pushing the limits of the form, criticizing hip-hop's increasing commercialization, and choosing social criticism as a lyrical subject over the romanticizing of violence so popular at the time.
On 1998's Book of Human Language, Aceyalone raised his greatest challenge to those who would continue to pigeonhole his chosen art form. Structured as the sort of dark fairy tale one might find in an antique volume in the far corners of some rustic library, Book of Human Language was a stunningly dark and brooding foray into the twisted mind of a brilliant wordsmith, each song unfolding like a chapter over music culled primarily from old jazz cuts. Back in those days, Aceyalone reveled in his role as a poet-laureate of the hip-hop world, spitting out lines like, "I'd rather stimulate your mind than emulate your purpose/ And we have only touched on the surface of the serpent," sprinkling his verse with literary allusion.
Accepted Eclectic opens with a challenge to "all you shallow rappers/ Bottom of the bottle rappers/ Spit and swallow rappers/ Hollow rappers/ Love to follow rappers." Appropriately enough, Aceyalone's greatest competition turns out to be himself. While above par when compared to most recent releases from the hip-hop underground, Accepted Eclectic cannot hope to compare to its creator's previous works. Not only does Eclectic lack the cohesiveness that made Human Language such a stunning listen, but the songs seem tossed off in comparison.
While tunes like "Five Feet," a rant against those who invade the personal space of others, are certainly amusing, they hardly pack the same punch as the introspective rhymes that occupied his other efforts. "Give me five feet all around the world/ I don't want nobody touchin' me unless it's my girls," is a great rhyme, provided verses like, "The more I look around, the more it hurts/ I quietly go berserk when I work/ Hoping to find that part of my mind/ That's mostly confined and blind," haven't been swimming around your head for three years.
Indeed, it's hard to believe three years of work went into Eclectic. Not only are the backing tracks sparse and cartoonish, the carefully chosen drumbeats of earlier albums are replaced with generic drum machines that could have been pulled off any mediocre hip-hop album in the bargain bin. It also lacks a cohesive theme to bring one song into the next.
Eclectic is hardly a bad album, though. Even these seemingly phoned-in rhymes offer more playfulness and insight than those of many of his better-known contemporaries. And there are still those moments where his ingenuity shines through. Take "Master Your High," in which Aceyalone mocks those unaware of their own limits. "First you start mumbling/ Then you start stumbling/ Then your motor skills start malfunctioning/ Could it be the intake/ Of the chemical that makes your body shake?"
The stupendous "Hardship" offers the only real glimpse of Aceyalone's introspective rhymes of lore. Not only is the musical accompaniment the only place where the album's seven (yes, seven!) producers comes close to matching producer Mumbles' intricate arrangements on Human Language, but it's reassuring to hear Aceyalone pontificating like he once did: "Some people, they live life inside a glass case/ Some people, they live life in the vastness of space/ And others will live long at a snail's pace/ I live with hardship slapping me in the face."
Pavement's Stephen Malkmus endured similar criticism when his solo debut failed to continue in the experimental vein his former band had been heading prior to its demise. But Malkmus' love for the project and the joy brought about by his newfound musical freedom shone through. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Aceyalone. Accepted Eclectic comes across as second-rate. Sure, it's often funny, and occasionally exciting, but ultimately, the attention to detail inherent in previous works has been marked absent.
All this brings up the ages old argument: when an artist has created work that can only be called revolutionary, should his later efforts be held up against the work of his peers, or should his previous work be used as fodder for judgment? The question is still up in the air. But Aceyalone's case, he's asked for it. It's right there, in pure manifesto form, on the opening track of the very first Freestyle Fellowship album: "Acknowledging rap as an art form, we break the rules and set new standards in the arena by experimenting in tonal and harmonic inflections and sporadic pitch changes and deliveries. We'll stir your emotion and take rap music to its threshold of enlightenment."
