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Killer Mike - I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind

I imagine Killer Mike doesn't like the reasons that I kind of enjoy this album, at least on a surface level. I find this album entertaining because within the first five minutes 'the killer' does his own version of the pledge of allegiance, namedrops MySpace (including saying 'back slash', is that a first for a hip-hop song?), imitates Bone Thugs N Harmony and mentions that he has visited Australia and New Zealand. This is all a fucking joke, right?

It's not a secret that hip-hop has become a parody of itself. We aren't supposed to take it seriously. I am now looking at my fairly large rap music collection - mainly with titles from 1992 to 1996 - in a new light. It's now kinda funny how corny it all is, how silly they are for talking about beating someone down for dissing their hoe. Hell, even the word 'hoe' is pretty funny.

Throughout the dragged out 24 track double album, Killer Mike drops humorous lines about 'scrilla', people that are 'trippin' and/or 'pimpin', and how 'everyone be hustlin'. Like most hip-hop albums released after the scientifically proven peak of the genre in around September of 1994 the majority of this album comes off as lazy, repetitive and cliched. His Southern Big Boi flavoured rapping style has been done before by every DJ Tom, MC Dick and Grandmaster Harry from Atlanta to New Orleans. The beats are pretty stock standard but they do accomodate Mike's aggressive 'whinge-rap' nicely. The aggressive nature of Killer's lyrical style comes across more as a method to create a buzz by 'dissing' other mediocre rappers rather than a useful weapon in his armoury that could have seperated him from other similar artists in his same line of work.

Tragically, once you get over the extremely addictive style of the standout track That's Life, the unintentional parodied nature of this album and the way in which it highlights exactly how forumulated hip-hop has become, this just becomes a massive waste of time.