Taste the Secret
The mad cap long beach hippy hop three are back with their latest offering: Taste the Secret. It’s hip hop without the guns and ones and minus flash clothes and hoes. Swearing is out and fun things are in. The album it self centres around the hip hop trio working in a fast food joint called Meat Shake, as the name suggests they serve milkshakes made from meat! Using a formula made popular by Hip Hop artists like De La Soul, Cypress hill and Dr Dre; UD use their meat shake theme in between most songs, busting little audio sketches of life in corporate fast food hell. Most of these are humorous to say the least but lack listen-ability after hearing them a couple of times and you won’t feel like the coolest cat around blasting rhymes about meat shakes and veggie burgers out of your sound system. The real music is what is key here and although the songs don’t have the general appeal of their previous album ‘Journey to Anywhere’ they are catchy and will have you humming away and repeating the funkier rhymes over in your head. The ducklings have got more musical since their last offering opting for rock guitars here and there, jazz pianos, xylophones and sampled brass sounds throughout instead of the two turn tables and a mic approach we’ve seen before.
The standard of turntablism from their DJ young Einstein (probably the most talented of the three) leaves little to be desired cutting samples along with the rhymes and blending rhythms so seamlessly it is hard to tell what was mixed in the studio and what is turntable cut. The rhymes from Dustin and Andy Cat are imaginative and snappy, and at sometimes down right genius but don’t come in the kind of volume I have come to expect from UD.
As much as I wanted this album to be a soundtrack to summer 2003, alas it is not. The songs just aren’t as playable enough, by this I mean that most involve telling an elaborate story or enforcing morals on the young youth of today. I’m all for non violent hip hop but taste the secret takes it a step too far into an almost parental status. I can almost imagine a protective mother telling her Wu tang crazy 14 year old son “Why don’t you listen to nice hip hop, like those lovely boys from ugly duckling.”
Taste the secret does have its saving graces in the form of Abigail Silk a love song/rap of sorts featuring a jazz piano riff that the raps bump along over quite nicely. Also there’s a great Latino style song about Rio de Janeiro that makes you want to be cruising the Costra Nosa and Bossanova with the ladies followed by ‘I wanna go home’ about working somewhere you wish you weren’t, you know y’all can relate! Tracks that didn’t live up to expectations like ‘Potty Mouth’ and ‘Tough Guy’ are ok musically but lay on the moral message an inch or so too thick for me. ‘Energy drink’ is rather up tempo number proving Americans can’t really do dance music (with a few exceptions) this comes off as a poor attempt at big beat a la Fat Boy Slim but with rhymes on top, as much as UD may want it they’re not going to get people brocking out in the clubs to this one.
The idea of Ugly Duckling is a great one and was captured beautifully in the previous masterpiece ‘Journey to Anywhere’ where you felt the need to play every track in the album and impressed everyone with your cool sounds, ‘Taste the Secret’ lacks those vital tracks and instead you feel the need to skip certain songs to prevent embarrassment in front of your hip hop buddies.
6.0
Sixola 11:59 20/08/2003