Undesposable Temperment

This is a really good, well-crafted, album.

To describe Disposable Arts in one word, is Lucid. With two, Piercing. Masta Ace’s work isn’t culled from various freestyle sessions with the homies, compiled in the studio by couplet and quatrain, and then sold like it’s supposed to matter. It’s handcrafted. The songs are written, which allows Ace to use a wider range of literary techniques. ‘Unfriendly Game’ uses an extended metaphor to compare ‘the game’ of hustling and running the streets to an actual sporting event, complete with crowds, bleachers, refs and penalty boxes. ‘Alphabet Soup’ slurs words to create an unpredictable pattern when letters are substituted for numbers (he gets all the way to ‘w’). The songs stay on topic. ‘No Regrets’ asks and answers if the rewards of rap are worth the sacrifice. ‘Take a Walk’ describes ghetto living to a cursory walker down the street, set to a haunting melody and slow beat.

Stylistically there isn’t a lot of internal rhyme, which makes the lyricism on the album not particularly flashy or catchy. This doesn’t hurt, but instead prevents the delivery from obfuscating the albums message. It’s fun to listen to, but not THAT fun to listen to, so the presentation doesn’t prevent the communication of the ideas behind the songs. The style is bland intentionally, using rhyming couplets to advance the plot of each song, and each song as a thread in the woven tapestry that is the album.

Disposable Arts follows the story of an inmate released from jail who proceeds to enroll at a fictional hip-hop college in order to leave behind the danger of everyday life in Brownsville, a neighborhood in Brooklyn. The story is advanced through inserts interspersed between songs that thematically tie into the inserts, weaving a cohesive if not strictly chronological narrative with consistent mood, setting, and characters.

The message is mundane. It says ‘this is the ghetto. It’s bad. Don’t do this.’ The hero of the narrative leaves behind the danger and makes something of himself, where all the other characters fall into prison, death, or single-parenthood. It’s not a revolutionary idea, but is undertaken with honesty and refreshing in its clarity.

On a one to ten scale, I award this ‘album you want your child to grow to be like’. It’s deep, thoughtful, descriptive, and entertaining. It is intelligent and unapologetic. It is reverent and soulful and tragic and triumphant, and as a result it will alienate both backpackers and thugs because it is neither inventive nor simple, but walks a middle path of simply being very good work.