The overlapping artistic peaks of Stevie Wonder and Bob Marley in the 1970s left the notion of the transcendent, socially conscious black musical genius lodged in the Western popular subconscious. That notion remained latent until the late 1990s, however, when Wyclef Jean was temporarily established as the Clinton-era cultural symbol of cross-cultural (read: black and white) unity. Not for a lack of trying, but Jean never managed to release a Songs in the Key of Life or Burnin', and was eclipsed during the Bush era by the much less-threatening Bono.
The desire for another Marley or Wonder remains strong, as evidenced by the success of Joyful Rebellion, the 2004 genre-blending sophomore album from Toronto's K-Os. Rebellion went platinum in Canada and received just about every plaudit afforded by that country's popular culture industry, including the prestigious Juno Award. The favorable commercial reaction, however, led to introspection, and the introspection led to the follow-up album about the misunderstood superstar. True to its highfalutin title, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco is a conceptual piece, a melodious corrective to two-plus years of ostensible media falsities about its author. In this light, Atlantis resembles De La Soul's sophomore detour De La Soul Is Dead, on which the MTV darlings and granola-rap progenitors attempted to shed the D.A.I.S.Y. Age warmup gear and make an early-career three-point turn. Yet while De La Soul Is Dead showcased the trio's newfound industry-related bitterness, on Atlantis, K-Os goes in the other direction; regressing further into hippiedom, and neglecting to answer his critics in lieu of spiritual posturing. Consequently, Atlantis rebuts with more of the same; a fact expressed clearly on the contradictory chorus of "Flypaper": "I'm not one to repeat myself, but if it ain't broken, don't fix it."
Not necessarily fixed as much as dulled is K-Os' controversial approach to rap and hip-hop culture. Rebellion was widely criticized for its fire-and-brimstone arrogance about the current state of rap, especially on album opener "Emcee Murdah", which featured the lyric "hip hop's not dead, it's the mind of the MC." K-Os' response to the controversy is relegated to an untitled interstitial track halfway through the album. Over a beatboxed backdrop, he creates an imagined scenario designed to deflate his critics: "This kid rolled up, and said, 'What's up with Emcee Murdah?' That was then son, this is now; I live in the moment, like a why to a how." This sort of wishy-washy sloganeering as response is more PR blurb than battle rap, and is evident of K-Os' larger, unfortunate motivation with Atlantis: hovering around meaningful discourse, but subsuming it to quasi-spiritual, New Age mumbo-jumbo.
Throughout Atlantis, rap is present, but reduced to the level of signifier-- of K-Os' interpretive talents. His didactic fondness for rap's canonized first decade starts with opening track "Electrik Heat-- The Seekwill", where, over an interpolation of the Galactic Force Band drum fill that made "It Takes Two" a number one song in 1988, he specifically cites Chuck D, Rakim, and Nas. The reference to Nas' "The World Is Yours", in the form of a crooned coda, thoroughly launders the titular phrase of its original potency, re-imagining it as a tag line of spiritual reinvention. While his positions aren't as orthodox as on Rebellion, it remains evident that even golden-era rap needs thorough generic recontextualization to maintain relevance.
Elsewhere, Atlantis strives for a patchwork cohesiveness, with equal parts neo-soul, reggae, rap, and rock, bound by a vaguely spiritual message and partially elaborated water-related extended metaphor. K-Os' interpretive acumen is present throughout: The neo-soul song about overcoming personal strife ("The Rain"), the Power Music/Electric Revival number about redemption ("Sunday Morning"), the pop-dub experiement ("Mirror in the Sky"), and the Bloc Party song ("Born to Run") are all evidence of his talent. K-Os is unsatisfied to let them stand as simple genre pieces, though-- his consistent infusion of Meaning into every second of the record reduces them to components of a larger concept that never quite reveals itself.
"I'm trying to be unapologetic about the rules I break," K-Os claims on his website, before explaining that "most revolutionary art ends up provoking classic ideals and it is these same classic ideals that become prisons if they go unchallenged." While not clearing up the jumbled messages of Atlantis, this quote underscores its central contradiction, and the most troubling aspect of K-Os' public persona: the friction between progressive ambition and conservative output. Unfortunately, it's an issue that K-Os recognizes, but sees no need to resolve.
