Too many emerging hip-hop artists build their reputation by slandering the genre's contemporary trends. It's the Catch-22 of an artform built on both evolution and revolt: Each new artist is eventually put in the crosshairs by his or her followers. Toronto-based hip-hop spiritualist K-Os is no different, and on opener "Emcee Murdah" he reminds us that from the start. Unraveling slow spitfire rhymes against a doomsday guitar loop, K-Os complains, "Emcees keep faking/ Hoping to make the bacon," insisting that "they want the cash flow/ They steady schemin' for the #1 spot." Age-old complaints, indeed, and with each passing year and every half-hearted attempt to reform pop music's greatest cash cow, such grievances have become one of the genre's most absurd ironies. The vanity in these pedantic holier-than-thou-isms turns what is meant to be an expression of individuality into a cheap boast. In short, it's the sort of plea for attention that's being attacked in the first place. We all know that it's easy to be the hater-- the question is whether K-Os has the chops and vision to back his boasts. As usual, the answer is no.
Instead, the musical tapestry beneath K-Os' rhymes is Joyful Rebellion's greatest strength. Tracking the spiritual crossroads of hip-hop, reggae, soul, and flamenco, Joyful Rebellion stirs each of those ingredients into an album that, at the very least, deserves acclaim for blending classic and often forgotten Afro-sounds into 04's hip-hop scene.
"Man I Used to Be" brings the lock-step beat of "Billie Jean" and an MJ falsetto to a Prince-figured soul jam that comes complete with velvety string loops. K-Os speeds his rhymes in time to the track's heated bursts and-- unlike on the opener, where his pace seems willfully slow-- he's steady enough to keep up with the sharp beat. Although the song's late-70s acoustic-disco strut walks a fine line between parody and ode, it's hypnotic enough to make you not bother trying to guess its intent.
"Crabbuckit" is a New Orleans front-stoop jam bursting at the seams with stomping bass and hand claps. Against the song's heat-faded piano, K-Os' flow is as steady as the Mississippi flooding St. Louis Cathedral-- he rolls out crisp, sharp rhymes against the track's grotto rhythms. The sound of Tom Waits left to wrinkle in the shouted gales of a hurricane, the song gives the album's first third a sweltering momentum that takes a while to dissolve.
Yet, dissolve it does, as what at first seems like multifaceted musicianship fades into fractured genre-hopping. "Crucial" never escapes its watery reggae-tinged rhythms or matches its anthemic aspirations, and "One Blood" is yet another song protesting the state of hip-hop. At these moments, it would be easy to write K-Os off as little more than a preachy peace troubadour.
Fortunately, K-Os lulls you into allowing him the space to preach and convert on "Hallelujah". Working a greasy porch-front entreaty that's part culture and part Rainbow Coalition, the song is a simple paean to peace and ease. Adrift on a steady acoustic guitar and ascending strings, K-Os sings more than he rhymes, slowing himself to the leather-voiced husk of Bunny Wailer's more world-weary moments. While confronting fatigue, K-Os remolds the possibilities of the genre he's railing against. He strains himself inside the closure of a dying fire, and finally proves capable of shaping towers out of dust-black cinders.
