Hey, did you hear? Hip-hop is a world phenomenon now! Yes, spend some time poking around your favorite music magazine's website and I'm sure you'll find a heavy handful of hip-hop-gone-global thinkpieces. Read profiles of angstful teenagers rapping about life in Israeli-occupied Palestine, Cuban kids protesting the oppressive state police in rhyme, even Greenland b-boys composing bouncy anthems about caribou and snow.
So it should come as no surprise that the British, notorious for chewing on our music before spitting it back over the Atlantic in a shiny, new form, have also turned their sun-starved faces to the arena of hip-hop. There's just one small problem: simply put, British accents just don't sound particularly right in the context of syncopated rap-speech. To put my tweed linguistics jacket on, the American tendency to cheat on pronunciation fits in perfectly with the wordplay of hip-hop, while the stubborn British habit of perfectly enunciating every syllable makes things sound rather, well, formal. Or to put my Degrassi Jr. High pop culture jacket on, British rap can't help sounding like the dope flow of the immortal Murray Head on "One Night in Bangkok."
Which is why the first time you put on Original Pirate Material, you might find it awfully hysterical-- especially if the name had you assuming it was going to be another Strokesian garage act. The giggles will eventually give way to a bit of discomfort at the slightly awkward delivery-- the words here are jammed into measures like an overstuffed couch. You'll wince at a chorus like, "Geezers need excitement/ If their lives don't provide it, then they incite violence/ Common sense, simple common sense," bursting at the seams of its tempo. Then, about 48 hours later, you'll realize it still hasn't left your head.
One-man MC/DJ package Mike Skinner has an obvious talent for forging damn sharp hip-pop hooks that supercede his inherent verbal handicap. Unashamedly revealing a taste for 80s soft rock, the smooth-sung chorus and reverbed Rhodes of "Has It Come to This" is highly reminiscent of fantastically hair-styled pop giants Hall & Oates-- and believe it or not, I don't mean that as a putdown. "It's Too Late," meanwhile, features a sugared melancholy duet with a dreamy British lass between the verses, and tracks fortified with more canned orchestra than a late-period Flaming Lips album.
All of which would leave things a bit flaky, if it wasn't for Skinner's flair for nervous, metallic beats (The Streets' percussion is inventive enough for the album to be erroneously labeled as 'electronica' in the critic's bible All Music Guide). Whether changing speeds or dropping out unexpectedly beneath the ominous strings of "Same Old Thing," trampolining playfully in "Don't Mug Yourself," or rolling along completely oblivious to the piano loop rhythm on "Weak Become Heroes," they're catchy and inventive enough to make one forget the accent for a bit. It's not all successful (the slow-reggae bounce of "Let's Push Things Forward" is, ironically, pretty backward and tired), but it usually is-- and even when it's not, it's at least trying to be.
Which leaves us with the lyrics, tales of English street life provided entirely by the very proper-sounding Skinner. Now, if the phrase "English street life" makes you bristle, hold on a sec-- anyone who's ever read an Irvine Welsh novel (half-credit if you've seen Trainspotting) should know that life for the British working class is hardly Buckingham Palace. So while the lingo takes some getting used to ('geezas' instead of 'niggaz,' 'birds' not 'bitches,' etc.), it'd be incorrect to write off The Streets as either poseur or gimmick, and in a genre where unique lyrical perspective is especially important, the UK vibe is an intriguing element.
Plus, let's face it, Skinner's race and nationality will probably earn The Streets a spot on the "safe hip-hop for indie rockers list" this year, possessing, as it does, that certain unplaceable, familiar aura that appeals to mild hip-hop-ophobes such as, well, myself. As such, I'm not real sure where it would fall along the critical spectrum according to a genre expert (paging Sam Chennault, Sam Chennault to the OR, please), but Original Pirate Material seems to be remarkably solid. And given the fact that it does, eventually, manage to overcome the horrific-sounding concept of British hip-hop, it seems pretty reasonable to give it a recommendation. Bloody good show, I say.
