Blu's No York! was one of the most slept-on rap records of last year, a collection of songs so forward-thinking they helped listeners soothe the retromanic paranoia that abounded in 2011. Provided with difficult beats by a group of futuristic producers that included Flying Lotus, Diaba$e, and Daedelus, Blu dissected the most complicated sounds, seamlessly slicing through cuts on which most rappers would stumble to land a bar. It was an exciting, esoteric collection. And, for those of us who took Simon Reynolds' fear of future-past seriously, it helped to remind us that there will always be something brand new coming around the corner.
Now it's 2012, and if I weren't over my fear of NOTHING NEW HAPPENING IN MUSIC EVER AGAIN, Blu's Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them would be a cause for concern. The album was originally put out on bandcamp in December of last year and was marred, as many of Blu's promising records are, by a murk of fuzz and bad mixing so complete that it was basically unlistenable. Now it's back, being released officially by Dirty Science and Fat Beats and while it's newly intelligible, thanks to mastering and mixing, the songs also sound a whole lot like five years ago.
That's partly due to Blu's re-teaming with Exile, who produced the entirety of his classic underground debut Below the Heavens. By reuniting with Exile (who we can thank for the mixing, mastering, and some scratching), Blu makes a return of the sound of his ground floor, to the sweet, contemplative organic soul that had fans embracing him before he started to get really and truly strange in all of the best ways*.* And though it's tough to criticize a rhymer as fluid as Blu, I can't help but to be disappointed in a release that sounds so much like what came before.
The third track, "Maybe One Day", is an example of what's wrong. It's, as always, a showcase for immaculate rapping, as Blu unwinds lines deftly, internal rhymes building and switching on each other with extreme sophistication. But the message of the song is pedantic and reductive as Blu plays the scold, "I pity them fools, zipping through the city in jewels…/ In it for the Benjamins too, and so am I/ But why would I use it on fool's gold, when you know your true soul shines." This sentiment, the kneejerk scorn for the heavy flaunting of wealth, is straight out of the mid-naughts backpack rapper's cliché list of complaints. What's more, Blu already flipped the idea on its head a year ago with the half-satirical track "Everything OK", on which he both mocks materialism and wishes for more. And he did so over a crazy beat.
Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Blu's step backwards is the way it jars against his newly evolved style. The contemplative beauty of Exile's beats fits Blu's soul-searching perfectly on Below the Heavens. But the rapper has become more versatile and more jagged, stringing individually crafted phrases together so fast that their edges sometimes feel like they're cutting through the headphones. On the devout "More Out of Life", what could be a wrathful rant against a squad following false fathers, and looking to "Malcoms, Martins, Pacs, Chris Wallaces" is dulled by the elegance of Exile's beat. Blu's anger tamed, the song doesn't have the impact it should and he comes off like a jaded, weary teacher, rolling his eyes at pupils who refuse to absorb a lesson. He even gets lazy at the end, just listing off the things we're dealing with, "censorship, sponsorship, friendships, relationships, slave ships, minimum wages," which is nearly as bad as moaning random words, "relations, creation, incarceration, determination," à la Citizen Cope.
With a rapper like Blu, though, there are always going to be songs that demand repeat listens. One of the best on the album is "Growing Pains", and it's here that Exile unleashes with something a little more dangerous, a heavy beat with a steady melody for cruising downtown avenues. Blu comes through with a minute left and just goes, torrents of syllables coming forward in service of rapid-fire storytelling about pursuing girls, hanging out with his pops, wanting a Casio and riding around in Cadillacs. On "The Great Escape" the rapper sounds rejuvenated by the presence of Adad and Homeboy Sandman, the latter of whom is perhaps the only person in independent rap who can twist syllables with the same precision as Blu.
Or take "The Only One", on which the man himself relaxes and, still rapping fast as hell, relays explorations of his ancestors and past lives, in between insights into his everyday life. It's his gift for these details, for storytelling and poetry at Wachowski speed that makes Blu such a great rapper. But when you remove bullet time, though he's still formidable, Blu can't hold on to the kinetic excitement that animated No York!.
I've always been conflicted about the critical instinct to ask our favorite artists for constant evolution, and it seems particularly unfair to pull out one of Blu's three 2011 releases, point to it as being representative of "the future," and beg for more. But Blu has a loyal legion of fans who will stick up for him, and he could stand to be called out. Making albums like Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them is child's play for two guys as talented as he and Exile are. And though this album is a beautiful, well-executed listen, Blu will only really be fulfilling his potential when he starts looking toward the future again.
