My favorite artist, Aesop Rock just put out a new album, albeit a side project with producer Tobacco, known as Malibu Ken. As a self proclaimed Stan of Aes, I’ll try to remain fair on this review.
Going into this, I didn’t know too much about Tobacco. My taste mostly lie in the boom bap-Brooklyn-bass in your face beats. This album is more of a lo-fi/electronicly/high pitch at times alternative to that which was actually pleasantly surprising. It paired well with Aesop’s flow and rhyme schemes. Coming off what I believe is Aesop Rock’s best album to date, The Impossible Kid (maybe my favorite album in the last ten years,) I was a little nervous about him being able to live up to it. Looks like I had nothing to be nervous about. Although it may not touch the previously mentioned TIK or some of his other earlier work, it doesn’t have to. It is very entertaining in itself!
I think very highly of the first track Corn Maze. In fact the second verse might be the best I’ve heard penned in the last (place arbitrary number here) year or 2. It rolls into track 2, Tuesday. Although I don’t have anything professionally to say about it because I’m not a professional, it’s a very fun track and easy to listen to. With someone with severe ADHD, the next song or 2 turned into background music over my thoughts but I got sucked back in with the end of Sword Box (track 4) and keeps me entertained through Dog Years (track 5.) Track 6, Acid King, proves why Aes is the greatest story teller disguised as a rapper since maybe Slick Rick. A true story about Ricky Kasso, self proclaimed acid king, who kills a friend who stole a couple bags of drugs from him, is a masterpiece in my dumb humble opinion. The album finishes up with four more enjoyable songs, 1+1=13 probably being my favorite out of said 4.
If you’ve never heard of Aesop before this write up (wtf man!!!) then I would suggest some of his other work such as The Impossible Kid, Skelethon, Float or Beastiary (with Rob Sonic as Hail Mary Mallon) but Malibu Ken will still be enjoyable and will definitely not turn you off from becoming almost as big a fan of Aesop Rock as me. Almost
7.9/10 for Aesop Rock and TOBACCO are Malibu Ken
The M.I.P.P.A. Blog 