Mac Lethal
“This is not an album,” Mac Lethal writes in the liner notes of his new, um, release. The Love Potion Collection, according to Mac, is the first in a series of mix tapes on which the KC-based mic mauler tries his hand at various rap styles. Producing about half the tracks himself, Mac was in a playful mood during the Potion sessions. “Wookie’s Grove” eavesdrops as he has it out with an annoyed bill collector, and “Untitled” breaks into a long (and not especially funny) radio skit.
Potion is potent when Mac plays it straight; standout numbers such as “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Bellevue Machine” work because the humor is relatively subtle and Mac sounds committed to the material. “Change the Drawls” features a thumpalicious, head-bobbing groove that rocks with abandon as Mac and longtime associate Approach swap tag-team verses. Local beatmaker Kid Called Computer contributes three outstanding productions, including “All Night Long,” which winningly pairs Mac with SoundsGood mouthpiece Joe Good. Also included are two versions of “Pass the Ammo,” a cogent anti-war screed that found a fair amount of Net notoriety in recent months.
Mac also pontificates about worldly issues with philosophical flair on 9 Situations, a truly underground effort. This collaboration between Lethal and Archetype producer Jeremy “Nezbeat” Nesbitt was available only as a burned CD-R that the pair sold at shows for $3. Recorded this spring during a marathon three-day session, the ten tracks eschew crowd-pleasing hooks to focus on lyrical scrapping. The seventh track is a freestyle set to a stuttering, sitar-based Indian theme courtesy of Nezbeat; the beatmaker’s fluid, hot-buttered production provides an effervescent contrast to Mac’s punctuated, enunciate-every-syllable rap style. “The Birth of Spring” takes it back to Mac’s childhood roots (before bill collectors started calling me more than my girl does); the song’s puns (I can’t be your ex-boyfriend, I’m trapped in the Y chromosome) underscore the MC’s ability to twist common phrases into droll wisecracks. And even though Mac continues to French-kiss warlocks and euthanize hell hounds, as he does on “Juice,” the overall vibe reflects a creeping sense of sophistication.
