Review Summary: hit it on the first try, villain, the worst guy
Super What? begins with the sound of laughter. I know, I know, how many hip-hop projects have we all heard over the last eternity that try to inject humour into the hardboiled reality? Skits, behind-the-scenes snippets, features from actual comedians - one thing's for sure, hip-hop wants to make you laugh even when there's no punchlines.
But that's what sets CZARFACE apart, through a constantly and consistently surprising discography: Inspectah Deck and Esoteric are fucking
funny, and they don't need to rub it in our faces. Rather than lean into goofy delivery, Deck and Eso spit bars with a straight face, switch up flows and trade verses with one another like the seasoned pros they are. But the sincerely nerdy universe they've created – casting themselves as the enigmatic antihero Czarface, of course – lends itself well to honestly good punchlines and comic book charm. Add in the departed MF DOOM, one of the all-time greatest at rapping his way around a joke for a minute or more before landing it with the grace of a trained dancer, and you have an album that deserves to begin with the sound of laughter.
Recorded in April 2020 and delayed almost a year for obvious reasons,
Super What? inadvertently takes on the Herculean task of being a posthumous tribute to one of the greatest to ever do it. Thankfully, it's a quick-and-dirty 30-minute tape that feels like the nastier cousin to 2018's uneven
Czarface Meets Metal Face. This album makes no big deal about DOOM: he drops in on the mic, slurs some sinister villain shit and disappears almost before his presence has registered each time. It's the most appropriate possible tribute to a man none of us really understood. In life MF DOOM was enigmatic, ridiculous and often deeply frustrating, and
Super What? allows him the same attributes in death, without overtly sentimentalising his legacy in a way I'm sure DOOM would have fucking hated.
Freed from the weight of being some kind of statement on a legacy impossible to define, and sans the walking-on-eggshells of the first CZARFACE/DOOM collab,
Super What? looks more and more like three excellent rappers just chipping away in the studio, no expectations or external pressures. There's some hip-hop royalty on deck to lend a hand, as if drawn to the sound of MF DOOM letting loose one final time; Deck's Wu-Tang cohort sits this one out, but assists from DMC and Del the Funky Homosapien more than make up that quota.
Really though, the album is best when our three rappers circle one another like tigers in a cage, all waiting to pounce on the best punchline/reference/flow in sight. DOOM's filthy opening salvo on "Break in the Action", a clear highlight, could have been lifted straight from the larger-than-life cartoons of
DANGERDOOM. 7L's production is, as ever, the secret sauce that makes all this ridiculousness work; he continues to be one of the most consistent producers working today, wallowing in superhero samples and influence from greats like RZA and The Alchemist without losing his own identity. And Deck and Eso coast along on their easy chemistry, charging one another up like battery packs in a friendly competition. Only the well-intentioned but corny closer "Young World" breaks from the breezy fun; the rest of the LP is just a goddamn blast, one of the standouts being an Esoteric solo song where he details a trip through all of comic book canon to steal and rob, the apotheosis of CZARFACE's insanely nerdy obsession. (He really fuckin' said
dare I say, Daredevil? I robbed his ass blind, my god.)
All told,
Super What? will not be called an Important or Great hip-hop release in a way that justifies the capital lettering; even 2015's
Every Hero Needs a Villain, by far the best release in this charming discography, is more concerned with quickening pulses and generating grins than making anything like a Big Statement. That's fine, and pretty much to be expected when you're talking about an album with song titles like "Mando Calrissian". In truth, if future entries can keep up with the near-perfect pace of this project, this is my ideal outcome: leave the Big Statements for the next overstuffed Wu-Tang Clan release, and let CZARFACE lord over the silly, pulpy corner of the hip-hop landscape they've carved out for themselves.
