Also in this Issue
- Hill Peaks After a few low-profile decades, pianist Andrew Hill is resurgent--and restless (Music)
- American Idol 'Rolling Thunder Revue' examines the mystique of Bob Dylan (Music)
- The Beatifics: The Way We Never Were (CD Review)
- Fennesz: Field Recordings 1995:2002 (CD Review)
- Various Artists: Total 4, Ellen Allien: Weiss.Mix (CD Review)
- Carei Thomas Feel Free Ensemble: Mining Our Bid'ness (CD Review)
- Jason Moran: Modernistic (CD Review)
- Missy Elliott: Under Construction (CD Review)
- More articles from this issue...
More CD Review Articles
- Various Artists: Chilly Northern Women (Nov 13, 2002)
- Lateduster: Lateduster, and Five Easy Pieces (Nov 6, 2002)
- Franklin Bruno: A Cat May Look At A Queen , Jenny Toomey: Tempting: Jenny Toomey Sings the Songs (Oct 23, 2002)
- Eyes Adrift: Eyes Adrift (Oct 23, 2002)
- Various Artists: Boom Selection_Issue 01 (Oct 23, 2002)
- Liars: They Threw Us All in a Trench (Oct 23, 2002)
- Amon Tobin: Out from Out Where (Oct 16, 2002)
- Thievery Corporation: The Richest Man in Babylon (Oct 16, 2002)
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MC Paul Barman: Paullelujah!
Paullelujah!
Coup D'Etat
What do a Brown University education, a Catskills-worked-blue sensibility, and a knack for linguistic aerobics get you these days? If you're MC Paul Barman (real name: er... Paul Barman), it gets you an unlikely career as a sort of Woody Allen/Lenny Bruce/Eminem hydra who lyrically captures pop culture icons in more compromising positions than the National Enquirer. Barman made his mark on 2000's Prince Paul-produced It's Very Stimulating EP, and while his flow proved an acquired taste (imagine Biggie's voice, then picture the exact opposite), the album won him a cult following. The formula: a combination of high- vs. lowbrow subject matter (regarding a sexual mishap: "My pissed off jimbrowski turned three colors like Krzysztof Kieslowski") and a sense of comedic angst that made Slug sound like Ludacris.
This persona is fleshed out more fully on Paulellujah!, Barman's first full-length, which features him expanding his repertoire of intelligent juvenilia to embrace sociopolitical issues. "Bleeding Brain Grow" features angry invective directed toward righties "who refuse to disarm a nuke/And keep printing 'Marmaduke.'" He also slips in what is easily the most tasteless Holocaust-related lyric since the Sex Pistols' "Belsen Was a Gas" ("Gramps made a damn nice lampshade"--gevalt!). The MF Doom-produced jazz-fusion-style "Anarchist Bookstore" mocks nouveaux-riches Web developers, claims "Barnes & Noble'll harm the global," and derides the "political correctness" straw man with a dismissive "P.C. is as meaningless as the president's apology for slavery." But the get-a-pièce de résistance is "N.O.W.," in which Paul Barman, Sex Machine, cruises for action at a pro-choice rally with gooshy results. (As he puts it, he "frenched the wet whooseywhatsits.") And on "Cock Mobster," his laundry list of famous women to bed--including Kim Gordon, Amy Tan, and Cindy Crawford--exhibits his eclectic tastes as well as his goofy bravado.
But for a white, suburban-New Jersey native, there's still the nagging "cred" issue, and on the pseudo-autobiographical "Old Paul" he looks back through octogenarian eyes to ask why he might lack it. "Is it 'cause I go for the laugh/Because I'm not from the Ave./Because I target the fans that you wish you didn't have?" he asks with a mixture of frustration and modesty that belies a man hounded by haters. While he's not easy to take seriously, that's not the point: Barman is a comedian using rap as a medium, and he excels at straddling the line between the first and latter halves of the term "smart-ass."
About Nate Patrin
From the Archive
- Amon Tobin: Out from Out Where (CD Review - Oct 16, 2002)
- Doing It For Themselves An experimental hip-hop duo that's not just for horn-rimmed white boys (Music - Sep 25, 2002)
- All Circuits Busy Electronic avatars Fatboy Slim and Roni Size give jolts to a critically dismissed genre (Music - Nov 29, 2000)
- The Collective Conscious Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek gather everyone from Nelson Mandela to Rick James under the hip-hop tent (Music - Oct 25, 2000)
- Jurassic 5: Quality Control (CD Review - Sep 13, 2000)
- Kid Koala: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CD Review - Apr 12, 2000)
- All Tomorrow's Parties After 12 years on the fringes of pop, hip hop, and techno, Jungle Brothers crash all three with V.I.P. (Music - Mar 22, 2000)
- Company Flow: Little Johnny From the Hospital (CD Review - Jan 19, 2000)
- More articles from the Nate Patrin Archive...
