Review Summary: Onry Ozzborn's hip-hop tale.
The Gigantics. No ***. A quick glance at the track list and you’ll see gigantic name after gigantic name in the emcee world of underground/indie hip-hop. Aesop Rock, P.O.S., Murs, Qwel, Solliliquists of Sound, Mr. Lif, Xperience, and the list goes on and on and on. But The Gigantics is emcee-turned-producer-and-emcee Onry Ozzborn’s beast, both in the production and the management of the many different emcees. And good God is it a sexy beast.
Lyrically, it’s all here. Brag raps (“Shut Up”), battle rhymes (“10 Brovas Strong”), masterful storytelling (“Keep Walking” my
goodness), and philosophical meanderings (“Safe”). Each emcee spits a tightly-delivered verse, the individual talent and expertise shining through on every track. No track is wasted either with even the short one-minute songs delivering at least one fantastic verse. But surprisingly enough, this does not translate to an album lacking superb flow. As he is on Dark Time Sunshine’s
Vessel, Ozzborn remains the captain of the ship. While he doesn’t appear on every track, his signature rapping is heard intermittently, providing a consistency that holds the album together; Ozzborn should be highly commended for handling all the talent on
Die Already. His rhymes act as a mainstay, a glue, persisting throughout the record and holding it all together. Without Ozzborn’s guidance,
Die Already could have sounded like a half-hearted stars-of-indie-hip-hop compilation.
With his direction and lyrical outputs,
Die Already can claim greatness.
Ozzborn’s hold on the reigns of the album is also seen in the production. It ranges from thick and sticky (“The Redtown”) to crisp and clipping (“Ghettoblastertelevision”), but transitions are made flawlessly, usually with the help of sampling or scratching. At times the production gives the album a dark, brooding, depressive feel, but light-hearted samples (like an impersonation of Chris Farley) prevent the atmosphere from becoming too gloomy. That’s not to say it isn’t serious when it has to be though. Ozzborn manages to have a little fun while simultaneously keeping the mood where it needs to be on some of the record’s more somber tracks (“Keep Walking”, “Memory Loss”). Not one beat is out of place or methodical, and the production certainly allows the emcees to be heard loud and clear.
This is Onry Ozzborn’s hip-hop story. He tells it along with 50 of his closest spit-firing friends, and even allows them to fuse their stories with his own. But
Die Already is Ozzborn’s story, his ode to hip-hop that he produced and developed and labored over. And because the album is his story, Ozzborn’s presence permeates the whole of it, and only succeeds because of that presence. Altogether,
Die Already is the story of a career in hip-hop, but damn it all if it isn’t one hell of a story.
