producer: madlib

guests: dilated peoples, oh no & Medaphoar, kazi, qusimoto, The Alkaholiks, Defari, God's Gift, Declaime

The word ‘wack’ is not even in this reviewer’s ‘Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary’. Maybe the corny ‘Hip Hop Slang’ book by Fab 5 Freddy is some help. There it says "wack: bad, lame, uncool, unacceptable". Aight, okay.

Lootpack is out to eliminate all wackness in hip hop. May it be because you’re "sampling old school tracks, the only reason why the crowd claps / it covers up the fact that your rap's wack" ("Speaker Smashing") or because "we're gonna start to neglect wack Emcees who lack respect / as the lost art resurrects, I'll make all y'all want to eject / wackness, for the simple fact Jack is / sending this out to all of my 805 abstract friends" ("Questions"). It’s actually fair to say that the word ‘wack’ itself shows up on at least half the tracks.

The lyrical content might be repetitive. But with so many Emcees getting served, it’s not even funny for the kitchen. However, with Wild Child on the mic, you need to expect lines like "can you feel me? Speaking on you wack Emcees / ya saying ‘not really’, that's because I cut ya hands off" ("Answers"). Okay, they shove it down your throat, they make sure that battling is what they are provoking. That’s cool. But with their rhymes always being about battling, attacking the wack, and not even being funny, after a while even the most impressive simile will not get much of a reaction.

But then again there’s the beats. And as Madlib puts so eloquently "I got CD's in my crates, like crack in my pocket / yeah right, neither of the above" ("Crate Diggin’"). This is some real vintage sampling hip hop. With all his obscure breaks, loops and beats, he tickles his equipment to spit out obscurities like "Frenz vs. Endz" or "20 Questions". You better listen to that, than letting me explain these tracks to you. On "Hityaditdat", Madlib invents his own "Electric Relaxation", just in time to reminisce on the Black Sheep with "Verbal Experiments". And even though comparisons are used here to describe the tracks, each song does not copy the other, but remains a unique entity. Add to this the luxury of the epic "Episodes", where Madlib flips the beat with every Emcee stepping to the microphone.

Never boring and buyer friendly 24 tracks deep, this LP showcases that there is actually still creativity in hip hop. The fact that this comes from the west, might surprise few, but this coming from Stones Throw, inspires a knowing nod. Wack? This here? Naw....