Mastamind: The Mastapiece

Mastamind - The Mastapiece

One third of the legendary NATAS (Nation/Niggers Ahead in Time And Space -NOT Satan backwards...not Satan...y'hear?), Detroit's premier, original underground rap group, Mastamind has had a late start in the solo game but now, in his maturity, has burnished his skills, image and releases into a great, clear, dynamic update of the Acid Rap/Wickedshit template.

Acid Rap, so called because of both its corrosive and hallucinogenic content, was begun in the late 80s by Esham (East Side Hoes And Money) who, while still in High School, was recording and releasing a brutally graphic, scuzzy, pioneering form of lo-fi rap that melded the extreme, dark no-holds-barred unpleasant topics of other sick-genres like Black Metal and, to a less cartoonish extent, Industrial to the funk-boom-bap of early Hip-Hop.

It's full of illicit, nocturnal, morally defunct goings-on and OTT Satanic content (until Esham renounced that particular unholy subject, possibly from community pressure as well as personal reasons) set to distorted, trippy and harsh beats and, to be honest, it's all fantastic listening. Mastamind joined Esham and another rapper TNT to form the aforementioned NATAS, whose Doyoubelieveingod? LP is a great place to start with the genre, a group whose existence is in question now but produced some of the best heavy, fucked-up alternative rap of the 1990s. Mastamind has been absent from NATAS since he began striking out on his own and his own troubled relationship with Acid Rap brother/former mentor Esham.

I'll do a longer post on Mastamind (centre, front, Esham right and TNT back) later, because he's sickasfuck, but for now I'll stick to Mastapiece because, frankly, it lives up to its title.

So, Mastamind is hanging out with the Slaughtercore label crew recently (including the prolifically vile SCUM, who is determined to graphically out-revolt everyone else in the world) and their alumni feature heavily here. Whereas Acid Rap originally created an atmosphere of horror and evil through detailed, vivid report of the (hopefully) fictional activities of the group, Mastamind has slowly managed a careful move from this into a form of Horror-tinged, futuristic, death-obsessed, cinematic style whereby his beats (which have been of stupendous quality lately) reference horror's sonic cliches of Theremin sounds, doomy, rumbling bass synths and zombie-lurch rhythms without falling into anything as insipid or empty as, say, late period Universal Horror (Abbott and Costello vs Dracula vs Hitler vs the Werewolf, or something).
So, we're treated to tight, tidy Gothic hip-hop that of late has had a sort of cyberpunk leaning -see the cover art from last few releases below -which helps Mastamind carve his own niche and not be Esham II. The self-proclaimed Hellrazer has a distinct and purposeful style that's nothing but his own.

His bars are death and suicide focused here, with much talk of welcoming death and basically adopting the persona of the Pinhead of Hip-Hop (the cinematic incarnation of Barker's creation is heavily sampled throughout the album too). Mastamind doesn't have much of an audible sense of humour, nor is he able to tie his lyrics into the same metaphorical knots of meaning that Esham manages, BUT his dedication, consistency and personality more than make up for this. Look at the last few Esham albums which were sprawling and massive but varied and diluted to a fault -Mastamind knows what he's great at and works at making it better and better, constantly adding new tricks and bettering his old ones.

He's such a great presence on the beats, solid and practised with great imagery and sense of purpose that stands up beside the livelier performances of the other MCs. The aforementioned SCUM is a strange one as I find his flow brutish and unsophisticated but cannot deny that the way he bolts his lyrics together, i.e. the effortless (and endless) description of seriously unpleasant and violent images, is succinct, rapid and compact enough to make for enjoyable verses but exhausting at track and album length. The best contribution comes from Daniel Jordan, a young face in the scene, whose verse on Lay Handz (a standout track) plays with Mastamind's own history by referencing one of his older verses on an earlier album (I think it was Themindzi LP), giving Mastapiece the overall feeling of being a celebration of the history of the Acid Rap genre while simultaneously being packed with proteges, modernised beats and in cahoots with new labels that marks out fresh territory and a sense that this crew are onto something exciting and fresh, not just retrospective tribute.

An overall solid release, confident, polished and full of enthusiasm -my only complaint? Why make yer artwork so damn murky? Lighten up! We can't see the cool picture!

Although, it's good to see a right-on-time break from the (very cool) pattern of skulls/facemasks that was defining of Mastamind's new, freshly independent phase but had served its purpose by now.

I'm hoping that the Acid Rap template, far from falling into the depths of Gore-Hop (which is SCUM's grisly little niche), can actually emerge as a kind of mix of cinematic, Cyperpunk/horror aesthetics and use the breakthroughs made by recent underground rappers to newly stakeout previously lost territory, rather than pretend they're exploring it for the first time.