MONSTER ISLAND CZARS

MF DOOM has got to be one of the most overlooked producers in hip-hop, as his awesome lyricism generally overshadows his production efforts, which is kind of a shame. he must have dilla quantities of untapped beats floating around.

some of them turn up on his work for the monster island czars, the only crew DOOM rolled with after KMD. notably, mf grimm, with whom DOOM has beefed in the past, raps as jet-jaguar with M.I.C. on their one and only LP, (so far; there are rumblings of a second coming this year) escape from monsta island, he produced 6 of the 20 tracks. 2 of them got copped by his pal ghostface on fishscale*.



escape from monsta island, at times, seems like a weak wu-tang impression. jackin' asian genre flicks from the 70s? check. menacing abstract rhymes? check. song titles like "poizon windz" and "gunz n swordz" that could have been on any wu album? triple check check. for the record, most of the M.I.C. crew shows up on the better known DOOM (as king geedorah) solo project, take me to your leader, which is a way better cut, displaying a bit more than the wu-impression on escape from monsta island.

regardless, there are still some strong tracks on the album, even if it's marred by too many dopey stream-of-consciousness rapid-fire flows.



"became a monsta" is produced by x-ray, not DOOM. it's still a hot track. download here

"make it squash" is one of DOOM's messier beats, but it works with the lo-fi Czars to become a goofy, fun track. download here

"comin at you" displays DOOM's versatility as a producer. reminds me of the stuff that james pants is putting out on stones throw right now, and that's good. download here



* if you're curious, "1,2... 1,2" got turned into a wu-tang reunion on "9 milli bros", and the "scientific civilization" skit became ghostface's "jellyfish".