Review: Kenan Bell – Until The Future
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Kenan Bell – Until The Future (2010) [Sonata Cantata] // Grade: A
How do you feel about hip hop? Do you love it? Do you think it died in the 90s? Do you not care about it at all? Regardless of which of those–or any other–categories you fall into, Kenan Bell will make you feel better about hip hop. He’s worked out an appreciable style that is at once unique and familiar. From his meticulously curated non sequitur pastiches, to his witty depictions of the pith of our daily lives Kenan tunes into a wealth of hip hop frequencies and turns out good music.
Kenan is the kind of rapper that diversifies what being a rapper is about. He’s not breaking down barriers, and catapulting rap into new dimensions. He’s just a dude doing this thing, and his thing happens to overflow the cup that hip hop keeps in the cupboard. And, as the cup proceeds to overflow, you’re being washed over with line after line of witticisms. His music is a genuine reflection of who he is in life. When I met Kenan we chopped it up about hip hop, politics, ethics, humor, food, girls, et cetera. He’s enthused about all different aspects of life, and all of them manage to come through in his music. on top of this he’s working with a complex musical sensibility that allows him to fold Nas into Morissey, into Radiohead, into Freestyle Felowship, into Ben Stein. When I asked myself what hip hop sub-genre Kenan most closely matches, the answer could only be Bamabaataa. The music comes before the hip hopishness here. He doesn’t really fit with any of the recent trends–he’s not on some Southern thug anthem shit, he’s not on some spaced-out Chicago beat house shit, he’s not on some Cali chill-down shit (but he is chillin straight from Cali), he’s just on some hard to pin down shit. He’s using hip hop as a means to unify a ton of divergent concepts, and create some concomitance for a ton of disparate sentiments. 10 years ago we probably would have called him underground, but that distinction is no longer relevant–not to mention that it would be a disservice. He’s using hip hop–a music that seems to speak to nearly anyone–to create soundtracks to diverse human moments.
I’m always confused when people ask, “What do you rap about?” I want to respond with, “What do you think rap is ‘about’?” To me rap is rarely about something, so much as it is the embodiment of something. Kenan really exemplifies this concept. It’s difficult to sit down with this record and summarize any type of theme because Kenan isn’t using hip hop to address something explicit so much as he is using it to carry out something implicit. He’s the kind of emcee that you have to keep up with. In the beginning it’s all about just figuring out his pacing, piecing together his parlance. It’s easy when I come across something like Alleyboy “Definition of Fuck Shit,” I know what to expect before I turn that record on. But, even after you turn on “Until the Future” and listen to it a few times you’ll have a tough go at squeezing it into any singular hip hop genealogy.
Like I said, Kenan is all about overflowing the cup, and in a time when motherfuckers are throwing back shots dude is tipping the still. So, if at any point you’ve enjoyed hip hop I can’t recommend this record strongly enough.
