ODB

“A Son Unique”

(Def Jam/Roc-a-Fella)

2 STARS



In an age of hip-hop postures and publicity stunts, Ol’ Dirty Bastard was the real thing. A founding member of the revolutionary hip-hop outfit Wu-Tang Clan, he was the group’s loosest cannon, a wild man whose erratic and self-destructive behavior was reflected in his primitive, off-balance, and completely singular microphone style.

He lived the life and died to prove it: when he overdosed in 2004, he left behind a string of convictions, 13 children, and one of the most brilliantly chaotic legacies in hip-hop. His music, always disordered, has never been far from complete disaster: on “A Son Unique,” his first formal posthumous release, madness has finally vanquished method.

The album begins with a bright gospel cadence, which rings in the air for a second before ODB enters and brings the record down into the gutter, where it stays for another 12 tracks. From that moment on, it’s all crazy laughs, bizarre chants, and Ol’ Dirty’s trademark off-key, off-kilter vocals. ODB’s hoarse, strangely resonant voice is in full effect, veering unpredictably from off-key wailing to deep, eerie harmonization. The concept of dynamic variation is anathema to him: for ODB, if it’s worth saying, it’s worth shouting.

The opening of the record’s first track, “Lift Ya Skirt,” is reminiscent of ODB’s terrifying debut on 1993’s “Enter the Wu-Tang.” After a spate of expletives and threats, Ol’ Dirty tells us that he’s the same as ever: he boasts that “it’s the old Dirt McGirt / live and uncut,” and for a moment, it’s convincing. The pastiche of banged-out piano lines, children chanting, and sirens wailing is the type of track that brings out the best in ODB, and Missy Elliott arrives halfway through the tune to prove that she’s that rare girl who can out-dirty Ol’ Dirty. But the hope of musical resurrection ends with this track: it’s mediocrity from here on out.

The Wu-Tang influence is strong: five of the Clan’s nine members contribute to the record, beginning with Ghostface Killah on “Back in the Air.” Ghostface has had a Midas’ touch lately, but he can’t turn this lackluster RZA track into gold; the ghost of ODB just can’t keep up with him. “Intoxicated,” featuring Raekwon, and Method Man is also flat. Parts of ODB’s verse here have already appeared on Ghostface’s “9 Milli Bros,” suggesting that all the original Dirty material in existence has already been stretched thin. This may be to blame for the abundance and low quality of the filler on this album.

But just when it seems that it’s all going downhill, hope surfaces again with “ODB, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” one of the most whacked-out love duets in recent memory. ODB howls like a stray dog over Macy Gray’s breathy hook and Damon Elliot’s slick production, delivering lines that no other rapper could successfully spit: after cataloguing, for Macy’s benefit, a number of after-dark outdoor sex acts, ODB suggests that they could, “go to the movies / I don’t care which movie / I just wanna get some popcorn and make it salty.”

“Lift Ya Skirt” and “ODB, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” recall glory-days ODB, and these two trips through his stranger-than-fiction Brooklyn soundscape reward the listener for slogging through the muddy slop that fills the rest of the album. But really, were we expecting anything else? The unpredictable, hit-or-miss nature of “A Son Unique” makes it a fitting elegy for a man whose crazed approach to living and rapping created some delirious peaks and some horribly low valleys. Rest in Peace, ODB.

—Reviewer Tom C. Denison can be reached at denison@fas.harvard.edu.