Porno Freak

Clarence Reid's best work as über-freak dirty rapper Blowfly was on his earliest albums, which sounded like the product of a loose and loaded after-hours party with Blowfly constantly topping himself on one sexual gross-out after another while his band vamped on classic funk rhythms in the background. However, as Reid's Blowfly sessions became more successful, they began to take on the polish of Reid's above-ground with work with Betty Wright and Gwen McCrae, and while Porno Freak offers some good and greasy funk grooves and plenty of potty-mouthed talking from Blowfly, the trouble is the album sounds too professional for its own good. Cuts like the Spanish-accented production number "Maricon" and the pro-sexual harassment anthem "To F**k the Boss" are funny, but the arrangements and performances sound too slick to achieve their full sleazy impact, while the title cut's delivery is tight enough to make Blowfly sound like a "real" rapper, it makes him sound like one whose flow is just a little bit addled, leaving a track that shoots itself in the foot. There isn't anything "wrong" with Porno Freak, at least by the standards of Blowfly's best-known work, and it does bridge a musical gap between the worlds of Clarence Reid and Blowfly. But the latter persona represents a man whose albums are best when they're at their sleaziest, and ultimately this is like the R-rated cut of Emmanuelle compared to the XXX-Behind the Green Door fearlessness of Blowfly's best stuff.