Steve 'Flash' JuonIt’s strange to talk about Kid Capri as a rapper. He’s certainly got credentials in the rap game — in fact if I was making a list of mixtape deejays he’d be “first ballot” in the Rap Hall of Fame. From the late 1980’s up to the 2000’s he was HUGE. If you got featured on a Kid Capri mixtape you were legit, and maybe just maybe you were leaking your material to David Love just to generate a buzz for your next album. It makes me smile just thinking about him yelling “KIIIIIIID CAPRI” at random on anybody’s track. Didn’t matter who, where, when or why. If you were born in the 70’s or 80’s and loved rap music as a kid, you knew his name.
So yes he’s earned the nickname “The World Famous Kid Capri” ten times over. Even if he says it himself that doesn’t mean it’s not true. When I think about him though it’s always as a deejay first. It doesn’t mean he can’t rap. It doesn’t mean he shouldn’t rap. It’s just not what I associate him with at the top of my mind. He parlayed his notoriety into his own record deal for “The Tape” in 1991, and thanks to the rose colored glasses of nostalgia, I can still listen to it with fond affection today. It’s not a classic though. Wasn’t then, isn’t now. Had some good joints. Had some really good production by the late Biz Markie and his partner-in-crime Cool V. Kid Capri’s strength was never rapping though.
“Talking that okie-doke/you want the smoke?
So don’t provoke/cause I ain’t laughin’ at your dumb-ass jokes”
The sentiments of “Wide Awake” are not out of place. As a legend he’s certainly entitled to a healthy disdain for mediocre modern emcees who can’t hold a candle to the kind of rapping he did 35 years ago, but that makes it just as strange for a man in his late 50’s to spit bars like he just stepped into the rap game in the 2020’s. In fact the delivery takes out the trademark high pitched energy that makes David Love a personal favorite of mine on mixtapes. “Can’t take you and all that shit you call hip-hop.” Sure Mr. Love, I agree, but why are you imitating a modern way of rapping, spitting bunched up couplets rapid fire like a machine gun? Where’s the flair we know you for? It’s enough to make me say “WTF.”
When he drops Michael Bivins as a punchline he’s betraying to the audience that he’s my age or older, and let’s be honest we’re probably the only people who would be checking for a Kid Capri rap album at this point. Let me rephrase that – a Kid Capri RAPPING album. He could drop a mixtape today as fire as anything he did in the 1990’s just by linking up with the hottest bar spitters signed and unsigned and letting everybody get their shit in like a tornado tag lucha libre match. He could even sneak in one of his own original songs and we’d let that shit slide. Songs like “Handsome Woman” commit the cardinal sin of being boring though — and I think he’s trying to be pro-LBGTQIA, “think” being the operative word. The jokes he throws in about “tearing that ass up” make me question his sincerity; that’s not a problem since the beat and his delivery are so boring you won’t listen to this song twice.
And if it didn’t already feel like he was pandering to various demographics on the album, “Karen Why You Caring” really is the nail in the coffin. Once again it’s not that I disagree with his message. I’m tired of rich entitled white people who get easily offended when they don’t get everything their way. This is such low hanging fruit though, and I don’t know who produced the beat (I’m hoping it wasn’t self-produced), but they didn’t give David Love any inspiration to come with better bars. If he had made it a funny Redman style song clowning on a Karen for her bad behavior it might have worked. This doesn’t.
I suppose this is the irony of having “Kid” in your name when you’re pushing up to retirement age. I feel you Capri, it’s not easy getting older when rap is a young man/woman/person’s game. I respect your desire to be creative and stay relevant. I’m not telling you to hang it up as a deejay OR as an emcee. I’m just saying you need some better topics, better beats, and don’t be afraid to use a ghostwriter if your shit ain’t popping. It’s obvious you can flow so if the verbiage is right I’m not going to judge you harshly for not penning it yourself. Calvin Broadus ain’t a spring chicken either and he got a pass for it. In fact he might be the best example of how to make music as an aging rap veteran. There’s other things he doesn’t get a pass for, but we ain’t got time to get into that here, so let’s just say that you sir have not cast your lot with any politicians that would bring shame on your world famous name. Keep on rocking in the free world Kid Capri, I got your back. This album is a hard pass though.