Being a little brother sucks. Just ask my youngest sib, who has to endure the nightmare of living in the shadow of the inventor of the non-fiction novel and author of The Presidential Papers. My name is Norman Mailer. (I also invented the goblin that returns your emails.) But Oh No, who coincidentally shares his real name with the other famous little bro/convict-to-be Michael Jackson, manages to rise above his elder sib Madlib's legacy and chalk one up for the bottom end of the birth order. Oh No acts as a veritable sponge, selectively absorbing the respective musical atmospheres of his contemporaries and squeezing out ample goodness.
True, you get the sense that novelty is hardly Oh No's strength. At times, The Disrupt feels like Oh No's private Halloween party with each cut in fully bloomed apparel. "Stomp That" draws straight from the Jaylib playbook, ripe with gorilla pimp jungle thumps and the vocal intensity of a yet-to-be-quashed beef at Detroit BBQ. Likewise, "Perceptions" dishes a lovable, but easily imitable 70s Soul hustle as he recites standard criminal banter: "You got dollars/ Then come make cents with me." But Oh No deftly xeroxes and then wisely imbellishes; each recreation tantalizes with the greatness of its association while still forging a notably eclectic niche.
Oh No's nimbleness on the mic is easily matched by his creativity in the booth. The Disrupt brims with an understated vibrance rarely found in a debut release. "Seventeen" swims in an ephemeral gloom as Oh No lends the obligatory Afterschool Special ode to the teen caught in the game. The album's opening volley, "I'm Here", presents Oh No's unabridged bio in less than three minutes, and does so against a sprinkle of keys and stuttering vibes. "Life in the Ox is like life out of the Ox," Oh No quips about his hometown, dispelling any belief that-- despite the number of musicians it has produced-- that it's anything special.
Yet thematically, The Disrupt unfortunately lives up to its name-- Oh No seems to have pitched a collection of singles rather than a cohesive album. While each individual track demonstrates his strengths, the tempo and tone of the album explodes and subsides wildly and fails to build an interpretive framework. The pixilated, frenetic crescendos of "The Ride" barrels headlong into Aloe Blacc's sultry vocals and escapist mantra on "The Getaway". Perhaps the often jarring transitions are purposeful, but the gaps are still distracting and prevent the album from delivering closure.
Nonetheless, the son of soulman Otis Jackson and nephew of trumpetist Jon Faddis proudly revists his fam's talented crest. And what's more, The Disrupt adds another gold star to Stones Throw's heavily adorned jacket.
