The Nu Mutants – Fire Starter (Self Released, 2005)
It’s hard to dislike a group that so obviously has their heart in the right place. Nu Mutants seems to be a collective made up of friends and associates from the Toledo area that are rather critical of the current climate of hip-hop. To call this particular EP reflexive would be an understatement. The first track, featuring the rant by Natural, takes the form of a press conference on ‘The State of Hip Hop’ and utilizes the idea that if hip-hop were a state, he “would govern that shit.” Chyna Black is featured on the next track, which also exhibits some very poor mixing, leaving the vocals sounding ridiculously high in comparison to the beat, which itself is somewhat cheese related. Spoken word can get tedious, as this album exhibits again and again but at-least Jesus Bayano makes some poignant statements like comparing religion to gangs. Imani Lateef, while having the most ethnic sounding name, has the least interesting track and leads into the “Outro” consisting of a group of people warbling over a simple and quite boring beat. Only in dreams can I comment positively upon this slab, which is unfortunate due to the effort that no doubt was poured into it. But, maybe I just have bad taste. Who knows?
