Mike Ladd is one of contemporary hip-hop's great innovators, even though he often either operates on the very fringes of the genre or leaves it completely. He has a warm, versatile voice, and impressive flow, but more importantly, he has a lot of ideas. There are times when Ladd's vision and reach are so broad that his music can't quite keep up with it, but he's skilled enough to consistently produce satisfying albums-- twice creating absolutely brilliant ones: Welcome to the Afterfuture and Majesticons' Beauty Party.
Listening to Ladd, it's clear that unifying concepts-- such as the underground vs. mainstream rivalry/soap opera of the Infesticons and Majesticons projects-- are important to him, and his first entry in Thirsty Ear's Blue Series is no exception. Negrophilia takes its title from and is inspired by the writings of Petrine Archer-Straw, who wrote a boom with the same name (subtitled Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s). Her tome expounded upon the Paris art world's embrace of black American and African ex-pats-- and its co-option of their art and culture, which played heavily into Art Deco, cubism (earlier in the century), and Euro-jazz.
Now, if most artists were to say their album was influenced by a particular work of non-fiction, you might notice the influence in one song or a title or the cover art, but Ladd is serious. He weaves examinations of the book's themes-- as well as civil rights-related sound clips and references to both military and cultural imperialism and conflations of early 20th Century European art and modern American pop stars ("Brancusi sculpting Beyonce in Gold lame/ Blond negress")-- into his open-ended, heavily chopped and diced songs. The musical approach\xD0heavy improvisation revisited, reconfigured and reconstituted into dense sound collages yields plenty of interesting moments, but it also unfortunately marginalizes Ladd's rapping and also opens the door to passages that grow unfocused or cluttered.
Ladd does have a crack band at his disposal, with drummer Guillermo E. Brown (a frequent David S. Ware collaborator) helping to shape the record through editing and electronics, Vijay Iyer adding keyboards, winds by Andrew Lamb, Roy Campbell on trumpet, and Bruce Grant on tape loops. They set a promising tone with "Fieldwork (the Ethnographer's Daughter)", opening with dry hand percussion and acoustic guitar to simulate a field recording and settling on an ominous groove for Ladd to drop a few lines over, manipulating his voice even as it's attacked from all sides by squirming loops and fluttering woodwinds and horn. "Shake It" runs away with the show, though, with its off-kilter, lurching beat, outbursts of sax and trumpet and Ladd's tense flow.
"Worldwide Shrinkwrap (Contact Zones)" comes close to the glory of "Shake It", but questionable vocal processing-- including annoying pitch-shifting-- keeps it from getting there. That's indicative of the problems with the album's weaker tracks-- they wander through lengthy passages of wet noodle electro-jazz. Fortunately, the LP also has luxurious instrumental sections, such as the remarkable bassoon and trumpet duel of "Back at Ya," or Iyer's piano meditation and Campbell's dusty solo on "Sam and Milli Dine Out".
It's a shame that the disc isn't more laserly in its focus, because its best moments are stellar and exhilarating. We know from history that Ladd is very capable of making instrumentals that feel like they're going somewhere, so it's something of a mystery as to why he gets such mixed results here, but even great musicians aren't fail-proof.
