Album Review: Company Flow's 'Funcrusher Plus' reissue

Let's ignore the reductive Asher Roth/Eminem comparisons for a minute. Anyone awed by the white rapper du jour's soporific “Asleep in the Bread Aisle” would be wise to listen to "Funcrusher Plus," the 1997 debut from Company Flow. The album is currently receiving the reissue treatment from indie-rap linchpins Definitive Jux.

Indeed, two years before “The Slim Shady LP” had the mainstream media myopically proclaiming Marshall Mathers' monopoly on maladjusted melanin-deficient rap, El-P set the benchmark for sardonic Caucasian critique. 

If the Beastie Boys were Lower Manhattan's merry pranksters turned sanctimonious would-be sages, the trio of El-Producto, Big Jus and Mr. Len were its Hells Angels -- turnstile-hopping, graffiti-bombing babies of the late ‘70s, raging against everything from dysfunctional families to corporate larceny to the decrepitude of hip-hop.

The initial release was on nascent, boom-backpack bigwigs Rawkus Records, and conventional logic rightfully holds  “Funcrusher Plus” as the first great effort of the underground rap boom of the late 1990s. Years prior to to Mos Def and Talib Kweli, the first Company Flow 12-inches sound-bombed the subterranean with a singular ferociousness. As El-P described it, it hit like a "nail gun. Everything else is like palm trees."

During the Funcrusher Sessions of 1995-1996, the sub-genre hadn’t yet split off toward self-righteous tributaries -- there were no arbitrary divides between underground and mainstream. The well-known DJ Premier spun Company Flow, and their pictures were up in the Source. Meanwhile, the Telecommunications Act was ensuring that they'd never see radio play, and label consolidation soon established a 38th parallel between haves and nots.

Along with De La Soul’s “Stakes Is High” and DJ Shadow’s “Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '96,”  “Funcrusher Plus” forms a triptych of the first important salvos aimed at the Cristal-sipping, Bentley-swerving  commercial rappers of the Big Willie era.  On “Vital Nerve,” El-P declares that “when sales control stats, I place no faith in the majority.”

On “8 Steps to Perfection,” he declares discontent with rappers' “recycled metaphors” before dropping consecutive bars referencing the Incredible Hulk, Laura Ingalls and “Highway to Heaven.” When not inveighing against industry entropy, he’s railing against “every rhyme [becoming] the official new blueprint for wannabe writers.”

Avant-garde rap had been around since Ramelzee, K Rob and Jean-Michel Basquiat, but in post-“Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)” New York, the worship of hard-core rap has tended to supersede left-field experimentation. While Puff Daddy’s deep-pocketed disco and soul samples were the prevailing trend, El-P conjured an apocalyptic minimalism -- the sublimated sound of clanging and cluttered train cars, city grime buried beneath cuticles, and the ghostly smoke of burning blunts. With  Pentecostal fury, El-P and Big Jus strain to jamb dozens of ideas into every bar, approaching raps with carnivorous attack, bobbing and weaving with stutter-stop, off-beat cadence.  

If there’s a problem with “Funcrusher Plus,” it’s not in its execution, but rather in its apostles’ interpretation. It’s incalculable how many mediocre MCs heeded its words, but ignored its ideas. Thanks to their inimitable craft, El-P and Big Jus avoided overt stridency, their alienation transmuted into an eloquent evangelism.

While a lesser talent like Roth might carp about “how disgusting it is for black ... African rappers to talk about [their money], while the motherland is suffering,” he’d be well-served to pick up a copy of “Funcrusher Plus” and absorb its obsession with originality, or its efficacy in lodging artful complaints. Company Flow may have sought affirmation by rejecting the status quo, but the indelible nature of their debut is a powerful testimony to the virtues of staying wide awake.

-- Jeff Weiss

Company Flow
“Funcrusher Plus” (reissue)
Definitive Jux
Four stars

Comments

[Plug One Boss]

First of all, Big Juss isn't white. He's black and Asian. And Mr. Len is black. I don't say that to insinuate that your review isn't on point -- it is. But "Funcrusher Plus" was more about hip hop culture's influence among all races, not just a "caustic Caucasian critique."

Unfortunately, too many listeners separate the genre into stereotypically opposing forces: black street kids, white suburban kids, etc. As an ad for "Funcrusher Plus" said back then: Time to evolve.

[Jeff]

I'm obviously aware that Big Jus and Mr. Len aren't white. It doesn't say that they are. However, last time I checked, El-P was. Thus, "caustic Caucasian critique" is apt in some respects. Clearly, I'm aware that it's more than that. With all due respect, you're oversimplifying the points made.

[Plug One Boss]

-- Thus, "caustic Caucasian critique" is apt in some respects. Clearly, I'm aware that it's more than that. --

I'm not clear that the review reflects that. It only mentions El-P's contributions, save for brief mentions of Big Juss. It mentions Mr. Len's name once. (Is he an MC? It doesn't mention the fact that he's a DJ.) Again, I find it interesting that you marvel at El-P's "caustic Caucasian critique" while whitewashing the other members out.

While El-P is clearly the leader of Co-Flow, and his rapping/production on "Funcrusher Plus" is amazing, it's also fascinating that the three members worked together in spite of their race. Both make reference to it -- Big Juss talks about black revolution at several points -- but doesn't let it stop them.

However, the idea of people of different races working together in spite of different beliefs doesn't work within your theory of "good white rapper" (El-P) and "bad white rapper" (Asher Roth). Furthermore, it didn't occur to you that El-P may just be a good rapper, while Asher Roth may just be a bad one, or at least a febrile one.

-- Let's ignore the reductive Asher Roth/Eminem comparisons for a minute. --

Why not ignore the reductive Asher Roth/El-P comparisons, too? Or, better yet, deal with it with more complexity.

[Jeff]

http://www.definitivejux.net/news/company-flow/1257

I'll leave it at that, "Plug One Boss."

[shump]

game over.

once again. another great piece. keep up the excellent work Jeff

[James Griffin]

'"its obsession with originality, or its efficacy in lodging artful complaints"

Encapsulates the album perfectly. Co Flow were a statement about what hip-hop should be; uncompromising, innovative, vital.

Fantastic article, we critiqued the LP in our last issue, but your review nails it.

Werd

www.bonafideuk.com

[mark b jones]

I was recently in Amoeba the other day as I walked up the stairs a poster caught my eyes that said something of the best album of the year I was curious since we where just half way though the year that an album could make such a bold prediction. I went inside the store and asked one of the associates where I could find this c.d bought and went home and played and I have to say that I loved it. I was something new and i felt it was something the music industry needed i hope that you can get your hands on it I would love to read your review on what I have to agree as the best album of the year. The name of the Band is "To Be Continued Brass Band" from New Orleans