Steve 'Flash' JuonYou have only to look at the cover of “Mr. Controller” to know Keith Thornton (Kool Keith, Dr. Octagon, Exotron Geiger Counter One Gamma Plus Sequencer, et cetera) is playing the comic book card. He has pictured himself as Galactus and in his outstretched hand he holds a Silver Surfer style herald. If you don’t know who these people are don’t bother yourself worrying about it much. Other than the introductory track “Cosmic Power,” you won’t be hearing about either of them again. I’m not saying Keith doesn’t appreciate the comic books or the massive media franchises they’ve created, but unlike the late MF DOOM using Doctor Doom for everything from vocal samples to his metal face mask, Keith’s not really engaging with the source material here at all.
If I were to pick a source of inspiration for Keith’s first song I’d actually say it’s dancehall. On the Junkaz Lou produced “Peter” he dips in and out of patois lyrically and uses the same kind of echoing sounds you’d hear in a song by Yellowman or Sister Nancy. He also indulges his wild fantasies on songs like “Rotary Engine,” using his typical stream-of-consciousness flow that ignores any rules about rapping other than his own. After five decades in the game he’s entitled to that.
“This girl lick my jock strap with a stocking cap
My fingertip in her asshole”
Is “Party Rock” in the house tonight? Only if you’re a fan of Keith’s self-described pornocore rap. “Put a towel over my head, sit and steam/women coming out front going home rubbing they pussycats with vibrating machines/the ATM spit millions, so they can see the Pacific rim/imagine if she wasn’t bald around the rim.” It mostly makes sense but only when you understand that Keith doesn’t write lyrics as much as he does rap thoughts. If he’s thinking about sex (and he does a lot) he talks about it. If he’s thinking about how much other rappers wish he was him, he talks about it. If he’s hungry and wants to eat sushi off a naked girl’s body, he can find a way to combine all three things together. He’s Kool Keith, that’s just what he does. “All I need is a watermelon and Brylcreem.” I don’t even want to know why.
At this point I’m “Comfortable” with saying Kool Keith is unapproachable to newcomers. If you weren’t already fucking with him before “Mr. Controller” this isn’t where you’d start. “Giving your girl a good dicking/the Louis Vuitton bags/the G on the golden mustard Mustang, give rappers, rags/let ’em clean off the mags/flow so relaxed, no Ex-Lax.” Yeah. I defy you to try explaining what he’s doing here to anybody who isn’t a rap fan let alone 95% of rap’s current audience. Keith exists in a niche that’s almost entirely insular where he can cater to his own whims because a small audience of devotees (myself included) are willing to go along for the ride.
We come back to the dancehall inspirations on closing track “She Can Play,” and to give Mr. Thornton some credit, I don’t think starting and ending the album this way is a coincidence. Who controls the dancehall? The selector/the deejay — and if you trace the roots of modern day rap all the way back through Kool DJ Herc, it was the boasting and toasting of these deejays over breaks that would lay the foundation for what exists today. He respects it and he arguably celebrates it, but he also celebrates his ability to indulge any fetish he likes due to being famous and respected. Who among us in his position can say they wouldn’t do the same? At least on this album it’s more listenable than some of his wilder tangents, perhaps due to Junkaz Lou’s production, but it’s a more cohesive album than a lot of his enormous musical catalogue.