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Sensational: Heavyweighter
Tonight, perhaps, you will go to hear some "underground" hip-hop. You will go to Toad's, where "underground" acts such as Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples will perform. These "underground" acts will: look back to the much-mourned old skool, studiously avoid violence and materialism, rescue rap from itself, be tight, have skillz. It will all be very polite and professional. You will be entertained, guaranteed.
Fuck that. Underground hip-hop doesn't play Toad's. It doesn't sign to major labels. And it's not polite. No guarantees—just threats.
And here it is: your real underground, your threat. Sensational is so far beneath, he's covered in Brooklyn dirt and dinosaur shit and has been since his abortive days with the Jungle Brothers. No collection of bumpin' singles and lively skits this—Heavyweighter is one crumbling slab in 15 parts. There are no samples unless you count a friend meowing when Sensational mentions Felix the Cat. There's no song structure. Sensational monotones sometimes resembling a chorus when he feels like it, then stops. "I don't waste my breath/And I love sex/I got the appetite/That be like/Hmm" is as close as he comes to narration. There's no variation, just drones and two-bar loops from the world's cheapest beatbox—but no regularity either as Sensational falls half-steps behind the beat and covers the vocals with layers of digital scuzz while mumbling and singing and arguing with himself. Nothing but the man himself.
You might compare Sensational to the Fall's Mark E. Smith for his obsession with sameness ("My repetition is overdose notes/Full of rhythm/Ha ha ha ha ha ha."), or to Kool Keith for his deeply damaged non-sequiturs ("Up the paw with Ebonics/You sippin' tonic/Give me Henny for my thirst-a/I got the GQ look from my brother Floyd."). But Sensational isn't capable of either's ranting pyrotechnics. He's a stoner, mostly, a would-be jigga who can't pull himself together enough to rule the world. Sure, he's a little resentful about that ("Don't confuse my style with/Industry gangstas/Prankstas/Motherfucker"), but he's mostly content to, well, earn, fuck, fight, and smoke some more.
And so, Sensational's definition of underground is just as reductive as J-5's. It's dirty, confrontational, boring, hypnotic—"bomb-shelter material," not entertainment. Your choice. (WordSound)
—Sam Frank
All materials © 2000 The Yale Herald, Inc., and its staff.
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