Steve 'Flash' JuonThis is the kind of album review that proves why RapReviews needs a Patreon. If it weren’t for crowdfunding there would be no reasonable way to talk about an album called “I’m a Piece of Shit.” I’d have to censor the headline and every mention of the album throughout the review, and even then someone at Google would flag the write up as unacceptable to their advertisers. It just couldn’t be done. For whatever reason Father chose a purposefully offensive and intentionally self-deprecating album title for this project. Wait — I know the reason. This is the same dude who called his record label Awful Records. Humor is baked into everything he does.
Knowing that makes “Slide Thru” an interesting listen. He and his labelmate Archibald Slim are taking this one seriously, or as seriously as anything that Father does. There’s too much explicit language (and general misogyny) for it to ever be a crossover drive-time jam, but it certainly has that musical sound. It’s slinky and seductive. On “Big Emblem Benz” he drops any pretense of appealing to the masses. He’s laughing from the song’s very intro then brags that he’ll “pull up to your funeral in a uniform that I left the club in/man purse with a fucking snub in it.” It’s so over-the-top he even sings a bit of Kelis’ “Milkshake” between bars and the hook.
Father has me constantly guessing whether or not he’s being serious or sending up the tropes of rap music. That’s a good thing. On one hand “Fuck Up the Sheraton” might be entirely on the level. Father and his cohorts just want to get ripped, have casual sex with loose ladies, and leave hotel rooms completely wrecked. On the other hand “2 Girl Fantasy 2” featuring Canadian rapper Tommy Genesis is way too overblown to not be parody, given Genesis openly describes herself as a “fetish rapper.” This is just Father goofing around with his libido and making himself seem like the raunchiest dude alive, and just when you thought he couldn’t go further he drops “Spit or Swallow” featuring Micah Freeman.
The barely veiled innuendos of Freeman singing “I don’t know if I’m coming/I don’t know if I’m going/all I know is I’m holding your heart in my hands” need no further explanation. It was at this point I came to a conclusion about Father — he’s a tongue-in-cheek mixture of Too $hort, AMG and Father MC. The good news is he’s better than the latter of those three, and not nearly as crass as the first of them if you find Todd Shaw offensive (generally I don’t but that’s a topic for a different time). He also experiments enough with his sound to be interesting, such as the minimalistic “Y U Make It Hurt.” It sounds like a Tyga track if Tyga didn’t suck. I also had a genuine laugh when he said “I like my girls abusive.” You just can’t take Father seriously for too long.
Father’s “I’m a Piece of Shit” shows there’s room in the rap landscape for someone to be slightly crass and self-aware about it at the same time. As my British friends would say he’s clearly taking the piss a lot of the time when it comes to his sexual raps, but there are times his come-ons might genuinely be appealing to the female gender. He walks a fine line between real and surreal and the overall aesthetic is largely pleasing to the ear. He’s a bit of a weirdo so it might not be for everyone but to be frank I’m a bit of a weirdo myself so it’s fine by me.