When Anti-Pop Consortium split in 2001, a lot of folks cried into their backpacks. After all, this was a group that dismissed both commercial jig and the underground's nostalgia obsession. Their Arrhythmia LP bursted with creativity, and its singularity seemed like it would be difficult to top. Former APC member Beans has since shown flashes (tempted to say, "given whiffs") of creativity in reinventing himself as the underground's ass-shaker eccentric, but Kool Keith still sits comfortably atop that throne. APC's other members, High Priest and M. Sayyid, have made less racket in the interim. Releasing solo singles and two preemptive mixtapes, Priest and Sayyid held steady while preparing their debut as Airborn Audio. With Good Fortune, they return to the more experimental ideas on APC's Tragic Epilogue-- and echo some of that album's monotony.
On the opening moments of "Miami/The Jungle", Sayyid rhymes over a boiling synth bass only to be halted by Priest demanding that he "spit something hotter." Sayyid's response is an interpolation of an old Snoop lyric. That offhanded humor hints at the album's underlying problem: Sayyid and Priest don't sound like they're sure what they're doing. The production is lazy, sounding like A.R.E. Weapons leftovers most of the time. Lyrically, they veer closer to the clichéd topics of hip-hop battle rhyming than the abstract intellectualism of past mindbenders. The hooks also stumble, lacking the originality of APC classics like the absurd "We Kill Soap Scum". Instead, we get, "I'ma fuck you up this year/ Don't come around here," from M. Sayyid on "This Year". Seriously? Can I get a "Silver Heat", please? How about a "MEGA/MEGA/MEGAAAAAA!!!!"? No?
One thing that becomes clear after listening to this LP is Beans was APC's hookman. He may have been a megalomaniacal pain in the ass, but dude stirred the pot. There's not a single moment on Good Fortune that rivals anything that the three together produced on Arrhythmia-- or any of their other material, for that matter. I tried not to compare the two groups, but Priest and Sayyid claim in interviews that Airborn Audio is a continuation of the Anti-Pop movement, a return to form. "Tragic Epilogue '05," says Priest. It's tragic. It's an epilogue. It's 2005. I guess, technically, he was in the pocket.
It's even more frustrating when compared to the material on last year's Close Encounters: The Mixtape, which was supposedly a teaser for the full-length. On the mixtape, the duo sounded hungry, rhyming over noticeably non-APC production. The snippets were bloated with grimy synth-encrusted street beats that borrowed knowingly from everything from Hollertronix to Dipset's anthems. It wasn't abstract. It wasn't groundbreaking. But, it was good. It made me think that Good Fortune would be an ugly, gritty reclamation of the worldwide underground. Instead, the pressure of resurrecting APC shackled them to a tired sound. Where the low profile of the mixtape allowed them to let loose, the spotlight on the Airborn Audio project over the last year-and-a-half seems to have provoked a backslide.
Here's the deal with taking a step back; you better be damn sure everyone else is still standing where you left them. They're not? Shit. The landscape is not the same as it was when Priest and Sayyid left. Killa Cam spills purple diamonds over opera vocals. Lil' Jon's scoring the apocalypse with terror-synths down in Atlanta. Swishahouse is screwin' and choppin' everything until the streets run red with the 'Tussin. And don't even get started on the juggernaut that is grime. And that's just what's on the radio. Whether hip-hop would sound the way it does today without APC is arguable (probably not), but the APC sound isn't as avant-garde as it was three years ago. And the slight tweaks of that sound on Good Fortune aren't enough to keep pace with current frontrunners. If you want to hear what Airborn Audio might eventually sound like, get the mixtape and maybe Sayyid and Priest's solo 12"s on Sound-Ink.
