K-The-I??? - Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow (2008)

K-The-I???
Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow (2008)
I'm typically not one to dump on anyone who tries to experiment with music. I fully support it, actually. This is how genre's expand and how new sounds are brought to us: by artists who aren't afraid to push envelopes and turn off some listeners in favor of attracting those few who really want to hear something new. But as with any experiment, some ideas work and some just don't. Rules are made to be broken, yeah, but some rules are there because they're a really good idea. Take rapping on beat, for instance. Good idea! I mean, if you have a beat, why not follow it, right? Otherwise the beat is wasted. It's there but it's serving no purpose. It's wondering why its creator didn't just use white noise and abstract sounds or something that fits the rapper's freeform style. It dreams of a relationship with a rapper who will respect it and treat it right; take care of it when it's sick and never dare raise their voice at it unless the crescendo obliges. And when it starts to have doubts about the relationship like that, the song will invariably fall flat. That is pretty much my experience with most of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.

To state it clearly: this album just didn't do it for me. The idea of it sounds really appealing on paper. On one side, you have an innovative producer in Thavius Beck, who has found success making great experimental beats for great experimental rappers like Busdriver and Saul Williams. On the other side you have K-the-I???: perhaps the most experimental rapper Beck has ever been paired with. K's stream-of-consciousness style of rapping probably can't claim to make any sense to anyone but himself. The only way he could make his lyrics more abstract at this point would be to invent his own language and words (which I wouldn't put past him, actually).

Sadly, the pairing of these two talents never really meshes well. Beck provides a lot of nice beats and soundscapes, but they seldom seem to have been made with an intent for vocal contribution. It's as if he were working on an instrumental solo album, K-The-I??? approached him about some beats, and Beck simply allowed him to pick through what he had and rap over it. The fact that it was actually the other way around (Beck approached K-the-I???) is a little perplexing. They make a pretty convincing case on songs like "Lead The Floor", but otherwise Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow strikes me as a nice experimental turntablism album that happens to have some vocals on it.

Plus, the rapping slightly offbeat thing really does bother me. But I've already spent an entire sarcastic paragraph addressing that.


Score: 5/10


"Decisions"


"Lead The Floor"