It is easy to forget that Hip Hop can still be a powerful driving force in exposing society’s ills. Songs like “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, “Love’s Gonna Get’Cha” by BDP and “Fight the Power” by Public Enemy are socially relevant today as they were in the ’80s. Due to the ever-increasing mainstream acceptance of the music, rappers who want to keep their songs consciously-driven must find new and interesting ways to keep their fickle listeners tuned in to both the music AND the message. Yak Ballz, the New York-based underground rapper, attempts to bring both the justice and the jams on Scifentology II, albeit with lukewarm results.
On the newly released album, Yak waxes poetic on current events from the War on Terror to the War on Poverty and peppers his biting lyrical insights on the world and himself with equal parts passion, wisdom and pain. The music, however, veers in a much different direction, providing the clever wordsmith with an inconsistent bag of sonic backdrops, ranging from Heavy Metal riffs to Electronica-based tunes. Furthermore, the sing-along hooks on the album are more or less detrimental to the social messages presented on Yak‘s latest offering.
When the MC chooses to focus on emotive choruses and less-than-conventional beats, the songs on Scifentology II lose the funky energy and political urgency of Hip Hop and become nothing more than musical exercises in self-absorbed indulgence and pity. For example, “A Billlion Ways” is admirable in discussing what many poor young women have to go through to survive during hard times but both the melancholy track and soft-spoken chorus sound too uninspired, too saccharine and too contrived to be taken seriously by true fans of socially-conscious Rap music. “War in My Head” is another track that suffers due to the overly emotional hook and lethargic haze of the music. In turn, the aforementioned track becomes less about the Yak‘s powerful critique of a society too obsessed with fame and fortune and more about the headstrong rapper’s desire to do away with his personal demons.
Fortunately, the famed underground MC is at his lyrical best on tracks that forgo blatant psychoanalysis and allow him to showcase his battle-tested rapping skills alongside deft social musings. For example, Yak sounds exceptionally focused and confident on “Nuclear Society,” a no-holds-barred jam that provides a wonderful display of Yak‘s intellectual prowess in dissecting the various ills of modern society. “New Communication” also finds the talented wordsmith in his claustrophobic element as he verbally exposes the crooked nature of the recording industry through cinematic similes and metaphors.
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In 2008, it is not such an easy thing to bring Hip Hop fans back to supporting the culture’s often overlooked yet powerful socio-political leanings. On Scifentology II, Yak Ballz combines profound social commentary with a myriad of musical styles and embellished choruses in a worthwhile attempt to do just that. Unfortunately, many of the songs lose their outward meaning once the mixture becomes decidedly less Hip Hop and more about indulgent self-awareness. Let’s hope that Yak finds the right balance between thoughtful lyricism, personal insight and musical experimentation the next time around.
