We’re keepin’ it real to our ironic cracker identity: multicultural, transcontinental, now hittin’ the streets of New York homies. This marks the first of a series of reviews of hip-hop music. And when we say hip-hop, we don’t mean Kayne West. We’re talking about the lyricists emerging from the underground.
This week’s feature is the alt-rap group from Boston, The Perceptionists. After working together solo projects over past years, Akrobatik, Mr. Lif, and DJ Fakts have come together to form this powerful trio. Their debut album Black Dialogue, is a mix of political messages and thowdowns on the current hip-hop scene. The latter end of the album tends to slow with some love-themed songs, but lends itself for a good ending.
The Perceptionists only brag about how good they are if it hasn’t made them rich, which would mean they’ve gone hip-“popâ€. One of their strongest songs, Black Dialogue, claims, “You see it everywhere you look, speech, music, fasion and style, It’s black dialogue. Go ahead kid, try it on, It’s much harder to master than precision with firearms. Corny niggaz switch it up and rent it to Viacom, but it was taught to me early on by my mom. Master yourself, for maximum outreach potential.â€
The rebelliousness Memorial Day, a powerful track about the war in Iraq, questions Bush’s claims about weapons of mass destruction from the perspective of a U.S. soldier, “Where are the weapons of mass destruction? We’ve been looking for months and we ain’t found nothing. Please Mr. President won’t you tell us something. We knew from the beginning that your ass was bluffin’”
The Perceptionists open up for Lyrics Born this Saturday October 8th at the Bowery Ballroom. Normally a house of hipsters, we’re anxious to see what percentage of the crowd is actually black. Because, we crackers are so mixed race, we don’t romanticize black, white, or anything. For us, it’s about standing up and rebelling, giving moral clarity to today’s culture. As The Perceptionists put it “Yeah, it was written in the books of Europeans we were savage, that our history was insignificant and minds below average. But how can one diminish the work of the most imitated culture on this earth”.