Paper Animals
label: manifest

producers: brewery, mr burns, snuff, dj essence, skinny friedman.

guest: jayceeoh, dj adolf thives, ambush the animated.
year of release: 2002
 
Considering the amount of trash that's spoken on hip hop records, it's only the more remarkable when someone comes with an album, full of conceptual and lyrical tracks, that are not corny. That's why Dos Noun impresses. He pulls off a couple of themes that have been tried and dismissed before, with a confidence, that puts him up there with the most interesting cats we've heard lately. And that's a bold statement, that will not be backed up by his flow, not always by his beats, but very much by the content of his verses.
With the first track being right the first song where a concept turns the track to be more than just a bowl of gibberish. "Lies" has Dos speak on all those little untruths and excuses that roll too easily off our lips. And it's scary and shameful that we can easily find ourselves in one or two of those. "Irony" goes a similar route by listing ironic situations, with Dos even pretending to be the very personification of irony. Thus he's 'Bill Gates lottery ticket' and the 'rotting teeth of a dentist.' The best of the conceptual tracks however, is "Butterfly Flaps Its Wings". And not just because of the dope opening dialogue sample, not because of the previously used sample. But because of both of those and because the additional singing sample hooked up by Mr. Burns works perfectly with the analytical words on what happens when that wing is being flapped. The second verse then gets strongly personal, with the content however being fit in the concept and not the other way around. Therefore this is an incredible song, that shows many of those dismissed as 'emo-hop' (with this label being corny beyond believe, but quite fitting too), how their trade can be done excellently.

tracklisting
1. Lies
2. Can I Break A Dollar
3. Butterfly Flaps Its Wings
4. Irony
5. Just Another Love Song
6. There But For The Grace Of God Go I
7. Karma feat. Ambush The Animated
8. Contradiction
9. Substitution
10. Perfection
11. Japan
12. Metaphor
13. I'm Going To Fucking Kill You
14. You
15. Beauty
16. Thanks...
Dos however also does the traditional and obligatory spitting track: "Just Another Love Song" is an ironically titled song where Dos drops the braggadocios over everyone stepping up. Parts of not taking things too serious are carried into "Karma" featuring Ambush The Animated, where they are multiplied by a wacky little look outside the window, over a nifty little piano beat. On "Contradiction" Dos then is mainly flexing his lyrical skills, as he's messing with expressions, over a back in the nineties beat by Skinny Friedman. With this cut being followed by a loosely conceptual track called "Substitution", that in a way portrays what all those people write on message boards. The concept then is strong again on "Japan", a partially impressing with wordplay, partially kicking metaphors and somewhat defining them, while "I'm Going To Fucking Kill You" goes for the blatant braggadocios.
This album however not completely neglects the expected tracks. They are called "There But For The Grace Of God Go I", where Dos is at times story tellingly digging into his inside. "Perfection" also goes for poetism with saying interesting things with many and no meanings. He expresses a certain Crightonism or Folletism on "Metaphor". The accapella "You" opens for the well produced "Beauty", where we again enjoy to listen to Dos to take a step back and just expressing his awe about all this beauty. And his reflections of teenage life on "Thanks..." is also more enjoyable to listen to, as it contains a lot humor.
As I'm getting more and more tired by all these diary and personal journals rappers, that try to outdo themselves with depression and wackiness, lyrics that are just relevant to themselves, someone that could have been predestined to do a record like that, but doesn't, only gets the more props. And with the obvious concepts being done excellently, Dos really manifests himself as one of the nicest discoveries of late. With his flow and delivery being better than 'aight' too, and with the beats always hovering above that 'aight' line too (sometimes way above, sometimes near by), there's nothing really bad about this album, but everything good.
review: tadah
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