Coffee is the smell you can't get out your clothes? Really? Just coffee? Coming from Devin the Dude and his massive band of friends, colleagues, and former Odd Squad comrades? Coded language 101.
A fun, low-budget companion piece to Devin's last solo piece, this year's Waitin' to Inhale, the Coughee Brothaz (say it like java) posse albums sticks to unhurried, sniffling post-G-funk roaches, and, without even knowing it, tosses together a skillet of pleasant, congealed, unambitious toasting. Sometimes the beats nose out in front of the lyrics, ("On The Road", "Cockhounds"), sometimes the lyrics (smoking, drinking, smiling, slipping the dick-- in that order) get up off the couch a step ahead of the catatonic basslines and half-asleep claps. It's not a knock against it to say nothing grand is at stake here. The credits in the liner notes don't have individual names next to the tracks. The bulk of the songs were already available on an obscure pre-lease mixtape available at your nearest shady-ass torrent site.
While a Scarface cameo on album-opening "Rise & Shine" is nice, accessible touch, and second-in-command Jugg Mugg is a loose, uncluttered MC, the voices, on the whole, break down to either Devin or some other dude. The other dudes are fine-- some angry, some queasy, some fluttering spit fires, some bass chompers. When everyone is trying to save the game, it is great to hear people just going through the day with themselves-- "You might find me at the crib makin' some pizza!"
Shunning almost every vestige of contemporary hip-hop identity, the huddled (in a circle around the lighter) masses of the Coughee Brothaz are satisfied-- delighted, even-- to turn out a few lines about crawling to the parking lot, keeping their fingernails untrimmed to break up weed better, and trying to get a piece of the pie. It goes without saying, but THC ain't the only thing Waitin' Our Turn is drenched with-- most (and by most I mean a healthy 75%) of the MC's have got a sweaty sleaze, totally aped from Devin, somewhere between wood-trim minivan owner and airport bar lothario.
Devin himself is a fantastic narrative MC-- a little Raymond Carver, a little Boomhauer, a little Slick Rick-- and almost worth the price of admission alone. He doesn't contribute anything on Our Turn as riotous as the "Boom" skits on Exhale or as detailed and warm as, say, the dazzling "Lacville '79" from 2002's Just Tryin' Ta Live, but he composes his durable tales and spits out common man come-ons ("I usually don't dance/ But I'll make an exception") and narrative asides ("Somehow we touched on the subject of weed/ Somehow she also smoked, I said 'Follow me'") as well as anyone post-Biggie. Devin raps on seven of the album's fifteen tracks, and when he doesn't divvy up a verse he's unspooling a chorus and hook, using that gassy, enunciated croon to push the album cuts along.
While low-key drum machines are the backbone of Our Turn, there's plenty of appropriately rural effects and instrumental touches. "The More I Spoke" sounds like a three-minute bridge of paper-thin 808s. If you could play Scruggs-style acoustic guitar, it'd sound like "On The Hunt For A Lady". "Don't Get Me Wrong" has dashes of those decaying P-funk whistles Dr. Dre loved to abuse, and "Fresh Rims & Vogues", the album's deftest gem, dishes up swaying, purple rhythms and soft, quitting-time sonar moans.
The album doesn't shy away from sideways humor either. "Yee-Haw" gets the Southern pride twisted into tongue-in-cheek, and "Rise & Shine" plays with the chronic/caffeine metaphor over a piano sample so cheap and twisted it should score budget children's carnivals, a crowing rooster, and faux-British accents.
In a fall that feels like one endless slow-roasted August, there are far worse ways to spend the wee hours of the hazy afternoon or murmuring, windows-open after-party AMs than grabbing a beat-up spot on the couch and letting Waitin' Our Turn pass between friends in a room. Just keep it in your cipher.
