Hey, who took all the rapping off this album? Without the bark and personality of an MC to elevate or mangle his music, it'd be rather simple for an album as quiet and unassuming as Ayatollah's Now Playing to fall away into the ether. Created without fuss, the longtime Queens-based hip-hop producer's official instrumental debut (the underground hit So Many Reasons To Rhyme was never officially released) is an efficient album full of downbeat, soul-laced songs. But it's certainly a curio from an accomplished, if too sporadically working musician. Ayatollah's best-known work-- "Mos Def's "Ms Fat Booty", Styles P and Pharoahe Monch's Soundbombing collaboration "The Life"-- would fit well here. But that begs the question: Why didn't dude just sell some of these beats? The music would work as a backdrop, but there isn't a clearly defined theme to this competent if tangential set of songs.
The reason lacks rhyme, I guess. Many of the songs seem to be designed specifically for vocal accompaniment. The elegiac "Hold U" (originally from Masta Ace's Disposable Arts) glides a bit oddly into the ragga-tinged "Kingston". The whistle-n-moan "Devil is Sweet" would work for any number of Rawkus'd exiles (Kweli comes to mind) or as the requisite end-of-album, somber track for a maje label second-tier soliloquist like Lloyd Banks. Instead it just juts out-- a fine, uncomplicated record in a sea of them. "This Song Is Over" samples the same track from Who's Next (not sure how he cleared that sample) and sullenly summarizes much of the album's mood. Ayatollah has his somnabulic bounce down cold: mix two parts well-chopped soul loop with one part breakbeat; add synth for ominous juxtaposition.
This is not to diminish the tact it takes to craft something like this, something that cleverly leaves gaps for the chorus and drops snares out for big punchline punches. But Now Playing works in opposition to contemporaries like Rjd2's Deadringer or Blockhead's Downtown Science or even Dilla's recent Donuts, which traded hooks for beat schizophrenia. Those guys embraced the spotlight, for better or worse, in the absence of someone shouting over their track. Ayatollah, perhaps with the exception of the rim-rocking "Go For It", is cool with hanging in the background, even when he's right up front.
