Son Of Bazerk Featuring No Self Control And The Band - Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk (1991) {S.O.U.L./MCA} **[RE-UP]**

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Son Of Bazerk Featuring No Self Control And The Band - Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk (1991) {S.O.U.L./MCA} **[RE-UP]**

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One of the rowdiest, craziest, noisiest, most animated records the rap world has seen, Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk recalls everything from James Brown to Bad Brains to the Time to King Tubby to…well, a great number of things – occasionally within the span of one track. With the Bomb Squad producing their singular brand of controlled chaos, Son of Bazerk's commanding, amped-up Bobby Byrd-like barks and grunts take center stage, while the four-member (?) No Self Control & the Band – who often pipe in vocally – act as support. Energizing lead single "Change the Style" gained the most attention for good reason; its multiple tempo shifts constantly revert to a hyperactive funk arrangement, with its diversions dipping into doo wop, dub, and thrash. "Sex, Sex and More Sex" is less about Bazerk's sexual prowess and more about the complications of a night out ("So kill all that noise about your crackhead boyfriend – you three ladies grab your coats we five thousand."). A major change of pitch occurs in "N-41," when the whole crew shares the mike over little more than a skeletal, propulsive machine beat. Similar to most Bomb Squad productions, the album has a merciless up-down-up-down sequence, with tracks continually flowing directly into each other. This only intensifies the breathless mania of the album. The only gripe with the record is that not enough room is left for squeaky MC Halfpint; every single one of her exultations, shrieks, and background vocals is priceless.

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Son Of Bazerk Featuring No Self Control And The Band - Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk (1991) {S.O.U.L./MCA} **[RE-UP]**

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The packaging of the Bomb Squad-produced Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk pays unsubtle but loving homage to the highly memorable cover art of James Brown’s debut LP Please, Please, Please. By now it is an axiomatic truth that The Godfather of Soul has influenced innumerable hip-hop artists, but his presence is nearly palpable on this album. The wily half-sung, half-shouted raps are more than just vaguely reminiscent of Brown’s signature yelps and assorted spastic outbursts. But that’s not even the half of it. While Son of Bazerk and his rapping/singing/shouting cohorts try their hardest to emulate the feeling of a JBs performance at a fever pitch, it is the Bomb Squad who truly channel Brown’s spirit and steal the show. Although It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is widely regarded as the apex of the Bomb Squad’s hyperkinetic production, this album sees the famed Strong Island production team take their relentless sensory assault one step further. The music is at times dense and unsettling; saxophones scronk amid quick guitar licks while solid boom-bap drums anchor all varieties of scale-climbing solos. Bazerk’s wall of sound overwhelms and captivates, but repeated listens reveal the methods governing the dizzying madness. The samples are so brilliantly selected and carefully placed that even the most cacophonous arrangements sound like the work of a finely tuned if overworked live band. The ecstatic noise of songs like “The Band Gets Swivey on the Wheels” dominates much of the album, but the listener is also treated to sublimely hypnotic moments, like when the guitars pan between the left and right channels on the relatively tranquil “Lifestyles of the Blacks in the Brick.” Conspicuously experimental moves like the ballsy borrowing of the central guitar riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” on the track “One Time for the Rebel,” exemplify the Bomb Squad’s knack for creating rap music that functions as both a reverently nostalgic and unnervingly innovative source of modern funk.

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Son Of Bazerk Featuring No Self Control And The Band - Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk (1991) {S.O.U.L./MCA} **[RE-UP]**

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Son Of Bazerk Featuring No Self Control And The Band - Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk (1991) {S.O.U.L./MCA} **[RE-UP]**

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