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────┤ Info ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Artist | Pharoahe Monch
Title | Desire
Genre | Hip-Hop Format | Album
Source | CD Time | 50:54
Label | Street Records Corporation Store | 2007
Catalog | B0009368-02 Rip | 2021
Bitrate | 918 kbps Size | 346.81 MB
Freq | 44.1 kHz Encoder | FLAC 1.3.1
┌────────┐
────┤ Tracks ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
01. Intro (Prod. T. Jamerson) 0:32
02. Free (Prod. Davel "Bo" McKenzie AKA 99 Fingaz & Kellen "J. 3:34
Clyde" Ford)
03. Desire (Feat. Showtyme) (Prod. The Alchemist) 3:32
04. Push (Feat. Showtyme, Mela Machinko & Tower Of Power) 2:52
(Prod. T. Jamerson)
05. Welcome To The Terrordome (Prod. Grind Music) 3:31
06. What It Is (Prod. T. Jamerson & Lee Stone) 2:56
07. When The Gun Draws (Feat. Mr. Porter) (Prod. Mr. Porter) 3:16
08. Let's Go (Feat. Mela Machinko) (Prod. Black Milk) 4:16
09. Body Baby (Prod. T. Jamerson & Mr. Porter) 3:18
10. Bar Tap (Feat. Mela Machinko) (Prod. Black Milk) 3:08
11. Hold On (Feat. Erykah Badu) (Prod. Lee Stone) 3:49
12. So Good (Prod. T. Jamerson) 3:15
13. Trilogy (Act 1, Act 2, Act 3) (Feat. Mr. Porter, Dwele & 9:23
Tone) (Prod. Mr. Porter)
14. Book Of Judges (Prod. Ill Will Fulton) 3:32
┌────────┐
────┤ Notes ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Pharoahe Monch has a stunning hip-hop pedigree. The Queens-born MC went to
high school with Mobb Deep's Havoc and Prodigy, founded the seminal
Organized Konfusion with Prince Po, and ghostwrote for Diddy on Press Play.
But the brain-bending lyricist remains best known for a quartet of
laddering synth bleats (the uncleared Godzilla sample from "Simon Says"
that got his debut solo album, Internal Affairs, pulled from shelves) and a
command to "get the fuck up" so irrefutable in that "how the fuck up?" was
the only possible response.
His long-delayed sophomore album, Desire, is primed to change that. It's a
best-of-both-worlds record, formulated something like this: backpack-rap's
sense of social justice (minus shrill self-righteousness) and overclocked
verbiage (minus rhythmic malaise) plus the trap star's outsized charisma
(minus deadening conspicuous consumption) and furious delivery (plus
rampant conspiracy theories). Monch knows it, too, neatly summarizing the
dichotomy on "What It Is": "They thought I was backpack/ Slept/ Didn't know
that that he kept inside the knapsack..."
This sort of deft reversal characterizes Monch's lyrics ("Slave to a label,
but I still own my masters," he spits on the title track), as does an
existential and oblique approach to well-worn gunplay scenarios. Vocally,
he's like a Yankee Ludacris, except that he peppers his durable, booming
vernacular with showy clusters of tongue-twisting homophones. And like Nas
in his prime, Monch combines several skill sets into a seamless package: A
vivid narrative imagination and the control to bring it to life, a knack
for dizzying extended metaphors and haymaker punchlines, and a complex
moral sense.
Any given track on Desire displays one or two of these attributes-- "Let's
Go" sustains a rhyme scheme built around the names of various handheld
peripherals; the braggadocio-driven title track is full of wild puns like
"even if you were ashes you couldn't "urn"-- but the best embody them all.
In the epic, revenge-fantasy closer "Trilogy", a chorus comprised of Mr.
Porter (in the funky first act), Dwele (in the elegiac second), and Tone
(in the boom-bap third) provides narrative compression and interior
monologue. "Trilogy"'s fantastic pacing and its use of music as a
storytelling supplement only adds to its high-wire tension.
Monch might flounder into familiar indie territory if his music weren't so
lucid and lively. He gives his backup singers and shapeshifting beats
plenty of room to breathe, especially on the tracks he produced himself. On
the anthemic "Push", he drops in for one climatic verse after a long gospel
workout moistened by Tower of Power horns, and on "Body Baby", he forgoes
his usual boom in favor of brisk syllabic shards that slot neatly into the
music's juke-joint bounce. Producers like 99 Fingaz, Alchemist, and Detroit
up-and-comer Black Milk give Monch the kind of extraterrestrial soul he's
built for. The only duds are the genre exercises: The maddeningly insistent
guitar noodles during the Public Enemy throwback "Welcome to the
Terrordome" are a long way from the Bomb Squad's Prince-sampled shredding,
while the disposable "Bar Tap" shows that club tracks aren't one of Monch's
strong suits.
Monch also handled production on "What it Is", where conspiratorial
whispers and an urgent synth monotone make the thread of paranoia running
through the record sonically explicit. This conspiratorial bent, combined
with the album's interludes (which range from civil-rights polemics,
meditations on telekinesis, and a satire of Clear Channel-controlled FM
radio), give it a recondite feel. Yet Monch's fantastical side is tempered
by hyper-modern references to the Iraq war, stem cell research, Hurricane
Katrina, and*,* in a clear moment of weakness, Queer Eye for the Straight
Guy. His penchant for working hot-button topics into his rhyme schemes is
so pronounced that you almost expect to hear about troop surges and colony
collapse.
The long wait for Desire is due largely to the Rawkus/Geffen debacle, and
Monch isn't happy about it-- as on Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury, his
frustration with being stuck in label-purgatory is apparent in pockets of
the album. The first time he speaks, on the whammy-barred screed "Push",
it's to liken the rap industry, with its "choruses of cocaine, tales of
black heat," to indentured servitude. "Now switch that advance for your
emancipation!" This angry-prole stance pervades the album; Monch seems more
concerned about labels fucking with his personal agency than his money. He
doesn't take pride in wealth like cocaine rappers, nor does he take pride
in poverty like their undie foils-- he seems more interested in specific
self-definition than on picking a side in rap's culture war. At a time when
a thread of unquestioning capitalist acquiescence runs through an otherwise
lively and diverse rap climate, Monch's embattled anarchism isn't just
refreshing, it's inspiring.
Includes US bonus track: Book Of Judges
┌────────┐
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