Fresh from his accolade-inspiring collaboration with Detroit's Jay-Dee (Jaylib - "Champion Sound"), prolific producer/emcee Madlib - aka Otis Jackson Jr, aka Quasimoto steps up with a new joint featuring Brooklyn rapper-beatmaker MF Doom.
If you thought that after "Champion Sound", his recent Trojan and Blue Note catalogue re-workings and numerous other bits & pieces, Madlib might be running on fumes, think again: this is his best work since Quasimoto's "The Unseen", the LP that established his skittish, schizoid style and put his name on the map.
With the Jaylib collaboration, the duo made beats for each other's rhymes. It was good, but sorely overrated. On "Madvillainy" the production is taken care of solely by Madlib.
Not only are the beats incredibly varied driving jazz rubs, smoky blues bangers, Latin freestyles, accordion grooves, homages to Sun Ra - they are kept deliberately succinct and on-point, never allowing to develop into loop-based tautologies.
The overall effect is chameleonic; a constantly shape-shifting set, sutured via clever cut-ups and amusing samples/ad-libs. Playfully weaving a la Prince Paul's work on De La Soul's "Three Feet High And Rising".
Though Madlib has been accused in the past of being unfocused and discursive with his beats, here he shows that his weaknesses can also be his strength.
Doom's presence is the icing on the cake. The two fit together so well it seems almost telepathic (a word Madlib used to describe the collaborative sessions). No stranger to the occasional personality-change himself, Doom takes the mercurial background scenery fully in his stride, strolling along without missing a beat, changing up his style when required.
Madlib joins in on a rhyming tip too, providing a perfect nasal foil to Doom's low-end delivery. At points (check "America's Most Blunted" and "Fancy Clown"), they can both be heard battling their own alter-egos (Quasimoto and Viktor Vaughn respectively) in an inspirational form of theatrical comedy.
Low-key and rambling yet consistently invigorating, Madvillainy offers 22 tracks in under 45 minutes. The duo's quick-change antics and exquisite repartee create a perpetually stimulating tapestry that never bores and always entertains. A definite tour de force for indie hip hop.
by Paul Sullivan