Release Date: October 10, 2011
With all the Lil Wayne and Gucci Mane clones floating around the world of rap, it is sometimes easy to forget the rawest elements of hip-hop. The things that existed on the streets of New York City in the early 1980s before everyone had Macs with Garage Band and every kid could grab a rhyming dictionary and talk about cars they couldn’t afford or girls they couldn’t get. It’s hard to remember that it started with a set of turntables and a microphone: the MC and the DJ. Ugly Duckling hasn’t strayed from that formula during the years, and their new record, Moving At Breakneck Speed, is no exception.
On this, their seventh full-length release, Ugly Duckling keep it simple with break beats and rhymes that coincide. The California natives are vets, largely considered one of the most influential underground acts on the past decade or so. With a teamwork attack on each song, they stay true to the form of their West Coast brethren Jurassic 5 and borrow a little from legendary hip-hop groups such as Dilated Peoples, Tribe and, of course, the Beastie Boys. Breakneck Speed isn’t anything new, but for classic hip-hop heads, it’s a nice reminder that this overblown genre can be simplified and taken back to its basics.
The opening track, “Keep Movin’” sets the tone for the rest of the album with heavy horns and scratches from DJ Young Einstein as Dizzy Dustin and Andy Cat hand the mic back and forth. This rhyme swap continues on “Momentum” as it does exactly that, building on what the opening track started as the beat pushes a little more each bar.
They guys slow it up a little bit on “$100 Weekend” and call out for the audience to just relax and enjoy the day as they ride the beat with a laid back flow. “Elevation” is a classic call-and-response cut and leads into the disco-feeling “I Wonder Where She Is Now” that conjures up memories of classic LL where they pine for long lost chances at love.
It the greatest contrast of back to back tracks, “One Horse Town” and “Anything Can Happen (in the Big City)” find the crew recalling stories with two completely different settings. The former with a slowed down, harmonica-filled backdrop and the later, a tale of stepping out of Grand Central Station and trying to act like they belong in the big city.
The album finishes up with shout-outs to old-school legends such as the groups mentioned above and their hometown of Long Beach; working out their linguistics over “breakneck speeds”; and the requisite DJ tracks where they let Einstein do his thing. They round all this out with “Endless Summer,” a mellow, perfectly Cali track where they rhyme from a metaphorical paradise and wish you were there.
It’s nothing new but it’s definitely not an unwelcome addition to today’s hip-hop scene. The veterans don’t change up their formula and turn out a great record. If only people still rocked high-top fades, gold chains and boom boxes on shoulders.
Ugly Duckling – Moving at Breakneck Speed tracklist:
- “Keep Movin’”
- “Momentum”
- “$100 Weekend”
- “Elevation”
- “I Wonder Where She Is Now”
- “One Horse Town”
- “Anything Can Happen”
- “How It Used to Be”
- “Einstein Got a Monkey”
- “Run for the Light”
- “Sprint”
- “The Homecoming”
- “The Breakneck Theme”
- “Endless Summer”
