Fun Lovin' Criminals – 100% Colombian (1998)

I've no idea, where or when I bought this, and even less of an idea why. Most of the rap stuff I'd heard, I'd found thoroughly unlistenable, with a few exceptions. Grandmaster Flash's The Message resonated as social commentary, but the glorification of crime, drugs and the casual misogyny of most of the genre rendered it unlistenable to me.

So, I'm a little conflicted by this album, since most of the music is wonderfully laidback and smooth, while some of the lyrical content grates massively. I'm sure the conflict between the beauty of Stewart Matthewman's saxophone and Huey Morgan's language in opener, Up On The Hill is deliberate, and the theme continues. The feel of the some of the backing music isn't a million miles from contemporaries Massive Attack, even if the underplayed rap lyrics don't bear that out, while the more upbeat tunes like Korean Bodega and 10th Street work fairly well. But things start to get pretty dull after the halfway mark. There's an Isley Brothers style guitar start to All For Self, but it disappoints thereafter, and the tedious Big Night Out is just Huey boasting about the "supermodels on my D". I'm assuming he isn't referring to his doorstep. It's childish, misogynistic and horrible.

After another listen, I'm no longer conflicted. The couple of early ear pleasers don't make up for the tedium and tackiness later on. The charity shop can try to get a quid for this.

Link to album tracks

2* - after early promise, this degenerates to cliché and lazy rap