When The Beatnigs disband, Michael Franti and Rono Tse form a new group focused on political hip-hop, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, straight from San Francisco. Franti takes care of the texts, Rono Tse of the production. The rhythms are inspired by those found on East Coast political albums, there is a robust and honest drum, a pounding bass and the sound is the fruit of the union between different genres, especially industrial, punk and hip-hop, with samples jazzy and funky scattered, in order to create a fresh, heavy and hard musical carpet.
The album draws inadequate comparisons with Public Enemy: audiences and critics alike note that this guy isn't doing either hardcore or pop rap, so it must be a copy of Public Enemy. This is absolutely not the case, even if they try hard to imitate their music and lyrics, this group can't even get close to them. Franti's lyricism spans many socio-conscious and political topics, including capitalism, consumerism, corrupt economy, media, racism, religion, television, multiculturalism, homophobia, bullying and wars. The lyrics here seem important, but they're not. They are only functional to music, Franti brings out his bars with a predicative and spoken style, almost never in rapping: from a technical point of view, he's a bad rapper, he's not an MC, he prefers the slow spoken word and with this type of delivery interprets most of his lyrics, letting the energy of the beats provided by the producer escape him.
"Satanic Reverses" goes among the finest tracks of this effort: Miles Davis sax sample, great rhythm, skinny heavy tight drum, almost spoken hardcore delivery, simple hook, great cut. Gregorian chant before the jazz trumpets, in contrast with the lyricism about religious intolerance and corruption. "Language of Violence" boasts a great sample from "This Mortal Coil" by Barramundi, boom bap hardcore, fast and light drum machine beautiful rhythm, dope; sustained delivery, hardcore, in slow rapping, simple hook, classic piece. "Hypocrisy Is the Greatest Luxury" presents a rhythm that seems straight out of the Bomb Squad, powerful and energetic boom bap, frantic syncopated skinny drum, skinny rhythm, fast hardcore delivery, dope beat.
Overall, it lasts almost seventy minutes: the album is too long, the single songs are too long, especially in the first part, where he also revisits a previous song with the Beatnigs ("Television"), and at the end there is a Dead Kennedys cover ("California Uber Alles") not required. The record, released by 4th & Broadway and Island Records, reaches the charts in Australia, but is ignored in the rest of the world, despite several excellent joints.
Rating: 7.5/10.
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