If your tastes in hip-hop tend to skew outlaw, then you've likely heard more than a few gingerbread rhymes (Clipse, Biggie and Beanie Sigel come to mind). While invoking that character is an effective way of portraying a sense of lost innocence amidst the trappings of the drug game, there's a reason that the Gingerbread Man isn't likely to surpass Scarface or any number of despots any time soon in terms of ubiquity-- other than "catch me if you can," there's little else to the story, certainly not enough on which to base nearly an entire album. But considering that MF Grimm managed to record the first triple-album in hip-hop history from a wheelchair just last year, I wouldn't doubt his willingness to try regardless of whether it's a good idea in the first place. So to recap what you currently know: subterranean MC with an aversion to quality control releases his fourth LP in two years and it's a concept piece about an anthropomorphic gingerbread man. Does this sound like a good idea to you?
The reason The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man falters is predictable-- even if you never hear this record, you can probably guess the exact way in which Grimm incorporates the title character. As was the case with Bobby Digital, "Gingy" acts as an incredibly thin filter for the sort of trite gangsta rhymes their creators likely see as beneath them. The awkwardly named avatar pulls bitches back to his gingerbread house, goes "wildin' out in Candyland" and generally runs from the law without really identifying his crimes in the first place. But other than the contemplative introspection of "Earth" and a few hints of racial tension with "crackers" over the color of his skin, Grimm traipses through his fantasy construct by contributing little resembling true insight, unless you think basing multiple tracks almost entirely on candy name-dropping ("Half Baked", "Gangsta Pastries"-- really) is a proper substitute.
You would've thought this sort of style was properly buried the second time Ice Cube penned "A Gangsta's Fairytale", but then again, Grimm doesn't sound like he has much of a relationship with any hip-hop that's been created since the mid-90's anyways. That much can be gathered by the plethora of sub-Primo incorporation of vocal snippets from the likes of Method Man and Onyx with a sonic aesthetic that's indefensibly anemic for 2007. Worst of all, not since Rappin' Grandma has there been a more dispiriting appropriation of old school than the hook on "The Fox"-- "don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge/ the fox tried to kill Gingerbread"-- it sounds even worse than it reads. Production-wise, the beats are so close to backpacker parody that Party Fun Action Committee can stay retired: just about everything sounds like it's been stuffed in a knapsack for the last decade, built on papery snare hits and Doom-lite snoozers that suggest Grimm spent his weekends crate digging in call centers. Even when MF pulls out a clever simile or ear-turning phrase, it gets subsumed by the sort of lockjawed, cadence-mindful spit that sounds like it predates him actually learning how to flow.
Then again, you can't really call The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man a failure in the true sense of the word; this will likely be nobody's introduction to Grimm's body of work, no one's going to lose their job over its sales and there's a good chance the guy's already got his next project already mapped out. If nothing else, it's a validation of Grimm's status of underground legend, because this is the kind of record you can get away with when you have to answer only to yourself.
