Album Review: Land of the Wrong White Crowd

In the words of the song You’re not Tupac “Don’t you ever feel like you wanna do something new?” Well, if you do, this is what happens.

There are some people who are born and live to sweat creativity from every pore, and multi-instrumentalist rapper-come-vampire clown JCK is one of them.  

Not exclusively Hip-Hop, not quite techno, and unlike anything else you’ve heard before, the ciphers in JCK’s new album, Land of the Wrong White Crowd, are one part confessional (albeit tongue-in-cheek) and one part scathing review of the popular music landscape, and it’s this part that I find most compelling.

By admission, I haven’t listened to popular music for some years now. The last time I tuned into commercial radio or music television the roster consisted of Hip-Pop and dance floor anthems. Known names expelling the same old songs that put style over substance. Here’s an album full of songs that provide both.

Aside from the ever memorable Tipee Tipee Taa Taa and Cogs ‘n’ Wheels, both still on regular rotation in my office, the stand out track for me was Shake It. With the line “shake it like an epileptic,” the song is one winge away from a Black Eyed Peas Let’s Get It Started/Retarded situation, which will probably be the best thing to happen to this album. 

Only that kind of exposure can lift this great album from one this country’s great unknowns, an extremely talent multi-disciplinary artist, from relative obscurity to the place above Six60 on the independent charts, where it rightly belongs.

You can find JCK’s Land of the Wrong White Crowd on iTunes or from the JCK website.