THIS IS NOT THE ABLUM YOU WERE LOOKING FOR...

I'd take Jedi Mind Trick's (JMT's) "History of Violence" a lot more seriously if it'd earned Vinnie Paz a shout-out on Jihadwatch. I tried to describe it to my boss. I said "It's like gangster-rap, but with a crescent on the Jesus-chain that every once in a while dips its toes into conspiracy-theories, and somehow gets referred to as 'conscious'". And I'm not saying that's baffling- only depressing.


That said, JMT's producer deserves some type of 100% automatic auto-erotic asphyxiation machine for being such a badass beat-maker. The tracks are universally rich, layered, and textured. 'Heavy as a Melody' is dark, constructed with the delicate sound of bells, slow drums , and an oddly unnerving hum/machine-revving in the background. 'Trail of Lies' includes all sections of the orchestra (including the oft-overlooked 'chimes') to underscore the frail subject matter of young impressionable girls. Even the interlude 'Those with No Eyes' combines a skittish, desperate oboe, and an overplayed operatic sample over the high-minded spoken word text. The overall effect is subtle, but outstanding.


Which contrasts greatly with half of JMT's lyricists, who are about as subtle as a dangling condom lazily hanging out of a dance-floor skank's vagina. 'Jus Allah's technique is to say a bunch of nouns and/or adjective-clauses that rhyme. Which is cool for a while, but after a certain point... I mean, sentences were designed to have predicates for a reason. An example of 'Jus Allah's bludgeoning poetry:


I'm sand and stone, I stand alone
I'm a candle blown, I've hands of bone
I'm smart and old, I'm dark and cold
I've a pawn shop of parts, I've a heart of bold
I'm a heartless soul, Is my heart bestowed
Death to all, let the closest star explode

The better half of the other half of JMT's lyrical duo, Vinnie Paz, gets a bye on his stylistic integrity. His pace is monotonous and he has an atrocious reliance on end-rhyme, but he uses enough literary techniques that it makes it look like he's trying. And most of all, the heaven's above blessed him with a voice reminiscent of an avalanche of gravel, if said gravel came wrapped in a box that reminded you of the fat Italian enforcers used in mob-spoof films. He also gets a couple of solid lines thrown in there every once and a while. On 'Trail of Lies', a song about the disillusionment of young women by the fashion/entertainment industry, he references starlets with,


Ninety-pound skinny bitches, that ain't even girl to me


and


And what's gonna become of 'em in like fifty years
When Hannah Montana turnin into Britney Spears

The problem though, is that there's a limit to the credit I'm willing to extend to Mr. Paz for his heartfelt political, social and spiritual ruminations. For starters, let's look at this quote we have from 'Butcher Knife Bloodbath':


Why we in Iran if all that we want is Osama
Why we in the jam if all that we want is Obama
Bush had you thinkin we at war cuz he asked God
Then blew up to fucking buildings in our backyard


Is he saying something construed as political? Sure, but a quiet reading of the facts would posit that A) we're not in Iran B) Obama's popular margin was relatively narrow C) Bush went to war to 1) fight terrorism and 2) prevent the spread of WMD's and D) Bush didn't actually blow up the buildings in any but the most greatest theoretical stretch that posits that as the most powerful political leader on the Earth, he is in fact responsible for everything that happens. So while I can 'feel' him, he's kinda oh for four on political points.

Vinnie Paz uses the same level of research and reflection in his propagation of the Muslim faith that he does for his political points. My favorite is

I'm fast like Ramadan with a knife drawn

which utilizes some cool multi-syllabic internal rhyme while simultaneously making Vinnie seem hardcore and blissfully ignoring the spiritual importance of one of the five pillars of his faith. It's like he converted just to have an excuse to talk about killing people. Which is cool- 90% of rap is about killing someone, so it's not my place to hold that against him. But it's somewhat duplicitous to rep the virtues of Iranian Mullah's and then turn around and decry America's materialism because it hurts people. It's like he consistently failed the test they made you take when you're younger where you pick the thing that doesn't belong, and as a result has been taking out his frustration at his handicap by shoving it in his listeners brains ever since.

On a one to five scale, I rate this a purple light-saber. There's only one of them in the world- no one else sounds like JMT, even if they wanted to. But the logical fallacies and the predictive rapping pattern lead me to believe someone was culled before they could join the typical green-blue-Luke pattern that a typical padawan experiences, but because their mother was really close to someone important, they weren't kicked out, merely relegated to the lesser ranks of the metachlorian-enhanced who will one day grow up to pilot small hovercraft whose job is to clean things because they can't be entrusted with anything more important. That said, between their legitimately impressive baselines and their distinctive choice of subject matter (and because Vinnie really does sound that good, he could read Doctor Seuss and make it sound like he's about to throw down) they still bring a solid and notable album. I just wish Vinnie would actually read a book about politics or Islam.

Or, really, just learn to read probably.