Flatlinerz — U.S.A.

Unique studio album released by the horrorcore group Flatlinerz, among the first artists to bring the subgenre to the East Coast and probably the first act to use the same term "horrorcore" as a musical genre, in a crasis between horror and hardcore hip-hop: the Brooklyn group consists of Jamel "Redrum" Simmons, Russell's nephew, Daniel "Gravedigger" Cunningham and Tempest. The three MCs provide the rap, while the production is mainly done by Tempest and Rockwilder, along with Crush, Kool Tee, D/R Period and Divine Campbell. The guests of the album are Rockwilder (credited without the "d"), Nora T., The Headless Horsemen and the group Tha Flatline Massive, consisting of Butter, Toss, Kool Tee, Gravemen, Mayhem and Omen (future member of the group).

The album was born with a precise identity, themes and references: the title is the acronym of Under Satan's Authority and the lyricism should be focused exclusively on that, including dark and violent graphic texts influenced by the homologous cinema. Instead, there's none of this: everything here's without talent, experience and inspiration and this is the key that destroys the record from the very first minutes. These dudes steal bars and beats with both hands from some of the biggest and most popular East Coast artists of the period, bringing them to their record in a fairly sloppy way, and what should have been the horrorcore soul of the CD, is soon diluted by generic random gangsta topics: there are murders and then practically nothing, a few casual bars that limit the shock value and don't really add anything citable to the rest of the horrorcore scene of the time.

Redrum puts a lot of effort into it and you can listening to it, his rapping is quite competent, he does his job with a syncopated, slow, confident and sometimes good flow, but his friends aren't at this level and they can't help him adequately, including guests, spitting something out with a monotonous and bland style. Musically, the production isn't wicked: that's actually a problem, being a horrorcore record. Rockwilder and D/R Period are both in their infancy, this is probably the third or fourth LP they work on, they've never done horror beats and, with a little luck, they'll never have to do them again: even apart from this, the overall sound of the record is a clear carbon copy of that of NY's major hardcore and boom bap acts, mirroring simplistic and minimal rhythms with slow, pounding drums, and samples that, instead of veering towards dark vibes, lie between jazz, soul, funk and rap (and, of course, the nephew of the main rapper, Rev Run, is also honored).

Good Jam Master Jay signs these dudes out of pity, but in the end, Uncle Russell himself, reluctantly, decides to put his nephew's group under contract, in an attempt to give hip-hop a big twist again and bring it back into the arms of Def Jam, as happened in the previous decade with his brother and LL. It would have to go from West Coast gangsta to East Coast horrorcore, a completely different genre: this record is a bet. Which Russell Simmons loses. Hip-hop remains gangsta. West Coast. For another year. With any luck, it'll be Raekwon's job to complete the West Coast-East Coast transition, taking the entire genre from street gangsta rap to movie mafia rap, popularizing a type of music that's a derivative of gangsta itself, and not a direct competitor. But that's another story.

The group published with Def Jam, one of the most important record companies in hip-hop, and is distributed by the major PolyGram. Russell puts up the money for three music videos. Not one, not two, three videos for his nephew's group and Redrum does an excellent job: the music videos are highly horrorcore, unlike the whole album, ironically, and just as ironically, the work is done so well that videos are banned from MTV immediately. So yes, that money isn't going to come back. The fact that behind this record there's a decent budget and serious labels should make you cry for anger, because 70% of the records released from scenes like the one in Memphis in the same years are at least four times better than this thing. In any case, the record sells 36,000 physical copies: there are many, but the commercial result is considered insufficient and a failure for the president of Def Jam, who decides to let the group and friends of the group who still had a contract. Mediocre and excessive record, 18 joints (6 skits; 2 consecutive), 56 minutes of listening, it doesn't even deserve comparisons with the acts of the same sub-genre, basically everyone has done better, 4/10.