Amazon.co.uk Review
Rap formulas of the day are given the boot on
Madvillainy. Having reinvented himself as psychedelic masked rapper
MF Doom (not to mention alter egos King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn), Daniel Dumile--formerly KMD's Zev Love X--has fittingly teamed up with producer Madlib, who's no stranger to aliases himself (see Quasimodo and Yesterdays New Quintet). Most of the 22 tracks clock in at around two minutes and many cuts consist of Doom spitting one long verse. Nobody chops up jazz standards and reworks them into SP 1200-induced soundscapes better than Madlib, so the warbled strings and unpredictable tempo shifts on "Strange Ways" and the flipped accordion sounds on "Accordion" carry the texture of a jazz record.
While Madlib's predilection for piecing together cryptic found sounds can get a bit tiresome, Doom's self-deprecating narrative of a man "on a fast track to half-sane" is genius and madness all rolled into one big blunt. Yep, on "America's Most Blunted" he gloats about being "nominated for the best rolled L's." While "Rainbows" proves that Doom shouldn't ever sing--and yeah, his scratchy, drawling flow is an acquired taste--he's still "got more lyrics than the church's got 'Oooh Lords.'" This is rap for frying your brain cells, and we all know they need a good cooking every now and then. --Dalton Higgins, Amazon.com
CD Description
Two years in the making, and combining two of the best underground hip-hop artists of the early 2000s, this collaboration between MF Doom and Madlib has been appropriately dubbed MADVILLAINY. With both men known for their stunning soundscapes, rhyming skills, and schizophrenic personalities, the duo decided to have Madlib concentrate on the beats and let Doom handle the lyrics.
In mixing their comic-book-like personas, Madlib and Doom play to their nearly superhuman strengths; while some other collaborations of this caliber seems forced and lop-sided, there is absolutely no filler here--just undiluted beats and rhymes, best exemplified by the singles "America's Most Blunted" and "All Caps". Lib's inventive production leans towards the jazzy side of his repertoire, and Doom unleashes outrageous lyrics on par with his solo efforts (and even his work as Zevlove X in his stint with K.M.D.). Never flashy or glamorous, MADVILLAINY is served straight up, the way hip-hop was meant to be.