Theophilus London
This Charming Mixtape
"I think son was trying to break new ground in the same way Andre 3000 did with The Love Below, but see, Andre 3000 is actually a musical genius. Theophilus London seems more like a nutcase. The electronic sounds, rapid beats, taking 64 bars just to start his verse on “Late Night Operation.” What’s really hood with dude? Law & Order: SVU can base a character off this man’s work."
-From XXL's "Ugly" review of the mixtape
"It’s not all seriousness with this four-eyed prick though, there’s laughs-aplenty too, including a skit where he phones up a girl to propose, possibly as a practical joke. Unfortunately, it’s been recorded with a “down the line” vocal effect, giving the whole endeavour serious “this phonecall is coming from inside your house” overtones, which are only amplified by London’s heavy breathing. And as you’ve drifted off from the boredom of the entire album, the moment when he starts singing, possibly without irony, Joe Cocker’s “You Are So Beautiful”, the alternating effects of tedium and awkward jarring make you feel like you’ve just woken up after dozing off in front of the television, only to find your flatmate’s hand on your crotch."
"Well well if it isn't another bitch ass mother fucker from the faggot club Sputnik"
-Some comment left on okayplayer regarding Theophilus, another comment, or the Russian Space Program
"The whole tape gets skipped when it comes up on the Zune."
-A negative review by somebody who owns a Zune
"In order to change people's minds, sometimes you've gotta promote yourself to the minds that need changing"
-Martin Brown's defense of the album, which he wrote a while back
From the standpoint of whether or not this is a good hip-hop album:
Hahahah, no of course not, you're making shit up. Why you keep making shit up? Not at all. This is about as hip-hoppy as the term "hip-hoppy", this shit is about as street as Matisyahoo, or whatever that freak calls himself. It's a terrible hip-hop album. That XXL review? It's brutal, kind of true. If London was trying to drop a mixtape that would get five bullets or six fried eggs or the Kingpin Ham Sandwich, he failed. But was he?
The album art, the title, the Joe Cocker singing, the dumb skits, the Clockwork Orange song title--okay, maybe the Clockwork Orange title and the dumb skits are kind of stock rap choices--are indications that there might be another goal in mind. That's the thing: they might be. This Charming Mixtape seems to crave some kind of analysis as to its purpose, mostly because it's all over the place, and it's hard to tell whether the bad parts are meant to be funny because they're so bad, or whether they're just bad because--well, dude can't sing, can't make his mind up, can't press pause when he's pulling his samples. His lyrics have a tendency to go off into tangential references, neither bizarre enough to be Kool Keith-y nor immersive enough to be Ghostface-y. He says shit, lots of it, and while most of it makes sense, little of it is continuous, it's just a combination of bits-and-pieces phrasing--a transcription of brainstorms, edited down to possible ideas. That could be rap, sure. At times, some of the tracks sound like rap, yes.
But This Charming Mixtape also sounds like remixed techno, and sometimes it sounds like a bad comedy album, and sometimes it sounds like a great hardcore album. All the time, it doesn't sound like anything specific, except maybe as an iPod on shuffle, a prove-your-catalogs-depth mixtape, a collection of songs put together to showcase that there's something other than soul cuts and kung fu movies to make music out of. And..well, that's not a surprise, it's not even a new thing, it's not like using random shit that nobody else did wasn't a part of hip-hop from the very beginning. Being different from the pack, using different samples, sounding, being, behaving--that still matters in rap music, and when defiant uniqueness shows up, it can still make a difference. In London's case, he's so all over the place that the work can take on the appearance of a blank slate. (If everything is brought into the tent, Whitney & slow-your-roll vocals & fart noises alike, it's hard to figure out what it all means.)
Ravenous appetites can often be used as a shorthand for genius. That's not the case with London--he's too much of a comedian, too willing to use extended samples in place of actual beat construction, too young to have even made a case for much beyond interesting. Still, there's something here, something that's analogous to the way in which Girl Talk's Night Ripper indicated much of what the opening of digital mash-up construction had to say about music's new vogue for homebase composition. More than anything else on this list, he's a purely contemporary musician--too frank, too open about his interest in everything, scattered, hated, nerdy as hell. This Charming Mixtape was his liveblog. That doesn't make it the best-est of the rest-est--but it did make for one hell of a thermometer.
-Tucker Stone, 2009
I think I'll check this out. I don't think I'll be able to guess my reaction to it, and that interests me.
Posted by: Chris Jones | 2009.12.22 at 17:43
Nice, Stone. You killed it.
Posted by: Marty | 2009.12.22 at 18:19
The fact that "this charming mixtape" got mentioned As one if the best "albums" of 2009, clearly shows that Theophilus is one hell of an artist, can't wait to hear the actuall album, I guess u guys consider his mixtape to be far superior to anyone else and put it in the album category???
Posted by: Rico | 2009.12.23 at 09:10
This is a mixtape you JERKOFF.. why is it in the album catergory?! it must be good to get a review
Posted by: TL fan | 2009.12.23 at 11:29
Come here you fucking mouth-breathers, I want to tongue kiss you.
Posted by: Marty | 2009.12.23 at 14:22
Yeah JIZZGUY, why is a MIXED TAPE in a RECORD review? You must have eaten a lot of HAM to get your MIND so clogged with HAM.
Posted by: Chris Jones | 2009.12.23 at 15:50
Your inclusion of a mix tape on the album list ruined my Christmas.
Posted by: Tom | 2009.12.26 at 19:05