THIS WEEK IN HIP HOP
Wow, so I guess I missed the part where writers, critics, hipsters, and hip-hop heads stopped giving a shit about either Atmosphere, Murs, or Aesop Rock. I found this out as I was in the process of reviewing Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez. The album is the latest in a series of collaborations between Slug of Atmosphere and Murs in which they choose one producer for the whole album (this time around, it’s Aesop Rock) and loosely dedicate it to a bodacious cult favorite celebrity woman (the first two were tributes to Christina Ricci and Lisa Bonet). It really screams “Gimmick!” But you’d think with all this gimmickry on its side, the project would make some blip on the critical and collective radar and I’d be able to steal ideas from a bunch of other reviews of the project to write my own review, like I usually do. But no, all these critics and writers had to be selfish and leave me to form an original opinion. Those bastards!

All three artists must be painfully aware of these shifting attitudes towards their music. But as it turns out, Felt 3 isn’t a last-ditch attempt by these three former critical darlings to regain the love and adoration that is now gone. Instead, the album is a series of “Fuck You’s” to haters of all varieties. On “Felt Chewed Up,” both emcees address their fading hipster love. Murs scoffs as he “watch[es] the hipsters hop to the next thing, fad to fad so depressing.” Slug advises them to take their “prosthetic tits” and “fake politics” away and “get off his dick.”

Writers and critics don’t fare any better. Slug and Murs have seen their stock amongst critics go the way of the recession now that honest, everyman rap is no longer the “next” thing. On “Whaleface,” Slug speaks plainly about these critics: “Spoken like you know truth, stop pretending/ check up on yourself, tell me who you’re condescending?” Later, on “We Have You Surrounded,” Slug even namedrops Pitchfork as part of a farmyard metaphor, implying that Pitchfork is merely a tool to keep artists (horses, in the metaphor) from roaming freely.
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