Records: Deejay punk-roc's Chickeneye

Throws in everything but the kitchen sink...

Check out sounds clips from Chickeneye at Planet of Sound.

By Sam Frank

Hip-hop was b-boyin' music, and rap evolved around the dance beat. Before MCs started dominating hip-hop, the beat was the primary thing—thin, stuttering "electro," filled with bongos, synth snares and handclaps, vocodered vocals, and lots of bass—the sounds of Bambataa and Kurtis Mantronik. Eventually, Freestyle and Miami Bass took over the electro sound, as hip-hop moved to a slower, more bottom-heavy sound.

Various artists have tried to bring hip-hop back to its dance roots. In 1988, the Jungle Brothers recorded I'll House You, and more recently, they've collaborated with jungle's Aphrodite and big beat's Propellerheads. But most attempts at dancifying hip-hop have been by British producers who know nothing about hip-hop—'most of them inject a breakbeat with steroids, add a few cheesy samples, and maybe enlist a bad rapper for a finishing touch.

DeeJay Punk-Roc is cheesy. And he doesn't avoid any of big beat's traps—there are enough sirens and stoopid samples to please the most discriminating fratboy, and Chuck D has never sounded worse than his sped-up sample does on "Far Out." But Punk-Roc understands hip-hop's electro roots, and that's what sets the best tracks on ChickenEye apart from the pack. Punk-Roc throws in everything but the kitchen sink: ray-gun basslines, a James Brown grunt and the melody from "The Message," a few classic breakbeats, and plenty of vocoder, all pumped up to colossal proportions. Fatboy Slim, eat your heart out.

If Punk-Roc were content with bastardizing electro for the masses, ChickenEye would be a low-art gem. But he also insists on throwing in a few weak hip-hop instrumentals and some mediocre "jazzy" downtempo numbers that don't work on any level. He may be "dedicated to the old skool," but his attempts at the new skool just aren't up to par. So skip half the tracks, put "My Beatbox" on repeat and let DeeJay Punk-Roc ignore your mind and move right to freeing your ass. Or skip the album entirely, and go find some real funky fresh electro. (Independiente/Epic)

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