The Four Horsemen are Back

In the video above -- actual footage -- Canibus, Ras Kass, Kurupt and Killah Priest let the fans know they're back. They are. That happened. This week was weird for a lot of reasons, but "multiple Canibus singles" was hovering towards the top of that particular list.

First up: PAY ME IN GOLD.



Yeah, hearing Canibus rhyme "tweet" is fucking depressing, but the same huge horizon is there, the same distinctive & insistent flow. The Ripper's opening verse stays interesting until you realize what you just heard is the entire song. Still, it was at least a straight verse, with none of the relentless punch-ins that have marked his past few releases.

Also, that whole "Sampling White Guys Ranting on The Internets" aesthetic? Get used to it. Up next is the new Horsemen track...



Anyone reading this -- indeed, anyone capable of reading at all -- can agree on this much: that hook at the beginning was fucking terrible. It comes back, too. This is seven minutes long, no joke, and you're not safe at any point. It keeps coming back.

Few things I've heard this year have given me more to think about than this hook, though. Writing it off with cheap snark is too easy. Think about this: if you put pretty much any mammal into a room with that hook playing, and they will injure themselves in a desperate attempt to get out. Yet this track was still released as a lead single. What kind of drugs were involved with that? I try to keep a pretty diverse diet, myself, and I can't think of anything that would make that hook tolerable.

There's also verses? I guess. I'm like three minutes into this and I haven't really noticed. "Underwhelming" would imply "whelming" occured.

Canibus walks into the room a little while later and his cadence is lower, quieter, more menace than monster. He does a riff on MC Paul Barman's classic "Sigourney Weaver" rhymes, adding "Labrador Retriever and four horse breeders" to the mix. This is completely incoherent and very, very awesome, but the slow burn never builds into anything: he just kinda finishes.

Then that hook comes back on.

I can't do this anymore.