The Entertainist

He looks like Jon Spencer but sounds more like Eminem, with a lo-fi 808 nightmare pushing Dr. Dre out of the producer's chair. Still, Gonzales is definitely not the worst MC, as he styles himself on a track heard on his first pure rap LP, The Entertainist. He's actually a great rapper, as iconoclastic and inscrutable a figure as Kool Keith or Ol' Dirty Bastard, with an irresistible sense of rhythm, hilarious lyrics, and a raw, kinetic production approach that benefits on several skeletal tracks from Digital Hardcore colleagues Patric Catani and Bomb20. One of the best productions, though, was actually recorded by Gonzales' associate Peaches. The track, "Futuristic Ain't S**t to Me," appears to set out the Chilly Gonzales agenda ("Being futuristic these days means being futuristic on your own terms"), though subsequent lyrics ("Being futuristic means loving worms/Saving your sperm/Wearing your pubes in a perm") resist any attempt at analysis. Besides rapping white-boy nonsense like Beck or MC Paul Barman ("Jimmy Carter in the place to be!/Hangin' with Chilly G!"), Gonzales also pokes fun at the legion of sex-crazed rappers out there, with amusing parodies (we're assuming) like "Candy" and "Cum on You." It's unclear whether he's attempting to save rap from the mainstream blahs or ridicule it out of existence, but The Entertainist is a brilliant left-field hit for fans of oddball hip-hop production and zany lyrics.