There are a handful of jarring moments on Rye Rye's long-delayed debut that remind us of the music industry's comically strange state of artist development limbo. The passage of time is sometimes palpable here. Three tracks in, "DNA" hits you like a Red Bull and vodka-drunken brick, stamped with producer RedOne's unmistakable Eurodance throb. On the next track, "Crazy Bitch", Akon delivers an awkward chorus of "She's a craaaaa-zzzyyy bitch/ That's why I love her/ That's why I love her" over a guitar-strummy hook that could've easily been a Travie McCoy throwaway. Later, a nondescript male voice drops in, rapping, "Lookin' at your behind/ Pull your pants down/ Baby, it's hammer time." Who's that? Oh, sure-- it's Tyga, YMCMB underachiever-turned-"Rack City" star.
Go! Pop! Bang!, whose release was pushed back for a solid three or four years for a litany of likely reasons, is peppered with these marks of 11th-hour cramming and last-minute attempts to achieve broader marketability and relevance. If that sounds familiar, it's probably because the parallel struggles of Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded are fresh in your mind. Female rappers are often unjustly tasked with additional pop-star duties in order to gain commercial viability, and the crossover terrain is understandably tricky to navigate.
Luckily Rye Rye's stacked the album with songs that fit more naturally in her catalog, and she makes a valiant experimental effort in the space between. The 21-year-old proves that she was ahead of the curve as a young teenager performing in Baltimore, and that M.I.A. was smart to recruit her when she assembled her (now possibly defunct?) N.E.E.T. team long ago. Much of the record's best material has been around for years: Rye Rye broke out with the Blaqstarr-produced "Shake It to the Ground", and the song's minimal Baltimore club beat and plucky schoolyard taunts sound fresher than ever in 2012 (and the more central her distinct bubblegum flow, the more capable and engaging Rye Rye sounds as a rapper).
M.I.A. appears as a welcome-- if sometimes unnecessary-- cheerleader throughout the record, from 2008's frenetic and aptly-titled "Bang" (appearing as a bonus track here) to a newer-sounding "Better Than You". On that track, the duo repurposes the classic Annie Get Your Gun tune "Anything You Can Do" for an anthem that blasts conformity in characteristic M.I.A. fashion. And then there's "Sunshine", another M.I.A.-Rye Rye pairing from 2010 whose sepia-warm playground visual probably deserves another look as spring clicks into summer. The young rapper adjusts smoothly to a hodgepodge of sounds, from a Vengaboys sample on "Boom Boom" to a lurking, futuristic Bangladesh beat on "Hotter". Warmth and color fill most of the deluxe edition's (admittedly bloated) 60 minutes, an assortment of bubbly beats forming in gleeful, block party-ready disarray.
For a long time it looked like a shelved Go! Pop! Bang! would go quietly into the night, and no one would have paid much attention if it had. For all of the false starts the record took last year (including a collaboration with Robyn and RYEot PowRR, an incredibly fun mixtape meant as an appetite-whetting preview), there's been virtually no fuss made for the album's ultimate release date. No new videos, tour announcements, or dramatic tracklist unveils. Instead the album's arrived as a pleasant surprise, better late than never.
