Country: U.S.A.
Genre: Hip-HopLabel Number: 422 860 948-2
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© 2001 JCOR Records
AllMusic Review by M.F. DiBella
After a six-year period of disillusionment with the rap game, one-time Juice Crew member Masta Ace returned with this supposed sayonara album that reads like a bittersweet memoir. Though Ace had been active in the underground scene since the release of 1995's Sittin' on Chrome,
appearing on a number of singles and contributing memorable verses to
various collaborations, the artist's disdain for the industry and
disgust with his contemporaries kept him out of the studio for lengthy
recording sessions. Feeling that rap's heyday had passed with the deaths
of rappers like 2Pac and Biggie, and seeing a media- and
market-influenced, watered-down product, Disposable Arts broods with
anger, cynicism, and satire for the modern rapper bent purely on trend
capitalizing. The paradox here is that Ace
himself seems to seek and feels worthy of the same multimillion that he
accuses his contemporaries of securing through less-than-artistic
means. The burden of underground respect that nets only underground
sales seems to be the primary source of Ace's frustration. While smacking of classic player-hate, Ace's
response for the Cash Money Millionaires and Roc-A-Fellas of hip-hop
is: "the rap game's a book and I read mad chapters/and if you ask me, it
ain't enough Madd Rappers." Ace
enlists a healthy balance of true schoolers (King T and Greg Nice) and
eccentric up-and-comers (Punch, Words, and the delightfully weird MC
Paul Barman) for the project. Musically, the album offers anything but
the disposable; highlights include the eerie narrative "Take a Walk,"
the fierce dis record "Acknowledge," and the ingenious "Alphabet Soup,"
where Ace
runs through the alphabet with some witty old-school rhymes. More
four-alarm flames light up "Something's Wrong," the psychedelic "Dear
Diary," and the thumping homage to the West Coast, "P.T.A.." A knockout
punchliner with an airtight flow and delivery, Ace,
in the face of everything he hates about hip-hop, turns in his most
expansively satisfying work. With 24 strong tracks and only faint signs
of misstep, Disposable Arts is tightly wrought thematically, musically,
and lyrically, not to mention one heck of a parting shot. Most hip-hop
albums of the modern era are lucky to cover even one of these areas.
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