Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Eleventh Hour Review

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien Eleventh Hour

Full Review

Tracklist:
1. "Raw Sewage"
2. "Bubble Pop"
3. "Back in the Chamber"
4. "Slam Dunk"
5. "Situations"
6. "Naked Fonk"
7. "Hold Your Hand"
8. "Foot Down"
9. "I'll Tell You"
10. "Workin' It"
11. "Last Hurrah"
12. "Str8t Up and Down"
13. "I Got You Ft. Ladybug Mecca"
14. "Funkyhomosapien"

Release Date: 03/11/2008

Listen

Bubble Pop

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2 poor	by Lewis Parry STAFF (62 Reviews) 2008-03-13 \| 18 comments \| 1474 views
Other Reviews: Dylan Darko (4),

Summary: Pass the chronic.

With Deltron 3030, Del tha Funkee Homosapien and his fellow cohorts (special shout-out to Dan the Automator, but we’ll get to that later) had established a futuristic, totalitarian world that, to a great degree, reflected our modern times. “In the year 3030,” Del rapped, “everyone wants to be a producer.” And so it goes. With his devilish charm, tongue-twisting veneer, and his outlandish performance, it was Del that seemed to anchor Deltron 3030’s ship, the irony in his cartoonish clown representing what he described as such a clean-cut, pristine and overruled future. He wasn’t perfect or necessarily good, but he was fresh and inviting, and his warmth swept up the hustle and bustle of Dan’s sonic wave. So it’s easy for those who only have this taste of the rapper to get riled up over a solo album, to see Del in au natural form, spitting rhymes without the binding story and the threat of being one-upped by an equally grand sound. Which makes Del’s Eleventh Hour such a resounding disappointment, displayed here as a boring and repetitive hogwash of limp sexual anecdotes, drug references, and equally lame beats. Yet spearheading this limp tripe the whole way is Del himself, and proves once and for all, that Dan was the man, folks.

Not that “Raw Sewage” would feed this sentiment. In fact, it stands as some beacon of hope for the rest of Eleventh Hour, jumping from its gospel clip into the rogue wave of ambient electronics and vinyl scratching. Del is easy and confident, “living life on cruise control” and “staying levelheaded.” “That’s more important than millions of dollars,” Del raps in his tighter-than stream-of-consciousness flow, dropping a promise on the table to keep his surroundings consistent and consistently surprising. It’s as good a place as any to drop first single, “Bubble Pop,” and the first sign of danger. Channeling a more ludicrous Snoop Dogg under the titillating noise of bubbles (popping!), Del loses steam quickly, stomping out the flames with each subsequent, “Why do you think you’re all that when you ain’t?” The song is annoying and grows ever more shrill towards its too-long four minute mark, leaving scorch marks as he spins donuts in repetition. Most of Eleventh Hour crumbles under this criticism, though Del’s awkward and unfortunate distracting nature doesn’t help to smooth out what ultimately comes out tedious.

Taken for its music, Eleventh Hour is disappointingly stale. “Naked Fonk” relies heavily on a loop of the same four piano notes, interjected with a female sound clip, neither of which make for anything remotely memorable (which seems odd considering Del pleads, “Shake your rump.” To what?). The electronic-keys that sway the old school R&B influenced “Situations” fares better, not least of which for Del’s smooth placement amongst the stylistic laser blasts, but the same can’t be said for the hollow “Hold Your Hand” that just adds more ‘80s-lite space oddities to little effect. Had “Foot Down” been sped up, it could have easily been an album highlight. As such, it sits just shy of becoming a radio-ready, hip-pop single, Del keeping tempo over the moderately catchy boom-bap under him (this same formula is strengthened in the marketable “Str8t Up and Down”). Fittingly, Eleventh Hour ends as strong as it begins with “Funkyhomosapien” that banks on the gangster rap staple, sample-laden production, marked here by sparks of techno and sound clips.

A voice prompts us in the album’s closer: “What the fuck is a ‘funky homosapien?’” This incentive to look backwards through Del’s discography (spanning over a decade) reveals an eclectic and uneven history. The search sheds a light on the grand, cartoonish charmer, a rapper that succeeds marvelously in the hands of confident and competent producers. On his own terms, Del sways wildly between hit and miss. And Eleventh Hour, for all its boisterous and awkward handling, fails with a resounding thud.

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