Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Simply put, this is an album that is a joke but plays like a hardcore entry in to the N.W.A music catalogue.  This collection of songs is based on a mockumentary (think This is Spinal Tap)  about a fictitious gangsta rap group.  The film, so I’ve been told, is of questionable comedic value.  However, the album seems very fresh and alive due to the fact that it’s strictly a riff off mid-nineties gangsta rap.  The gimmick is never more potent than it is here in solely musical form and it tends to ape so well that it could (to the uninformed) come off as some crazy, gangbanging shit. 

If you ever wondered why Ice Cube and West Side Connection rocked house slippers and chinos you’ll find out why.  House Shoes, my favorite track on The Glockumentary, glorifies the exalted status of South Central’s favorite kicks and reminds me why Deebo was so bad-ass in the first place.  On Gangstas Need Love Murder Mike, Du Rag, and DJ Ballistics show us the softer side of dope-slingin’, glock-packin’, rat-packin’bruthas.  Gangstas will be good to all you beautiful babies, but dare leave them and “they’ll smoke [ya]”.  On Nigga Nigga Nigga the gang goes for the record of laying down the most “niggas” in one song.  Sure, it’s a bit repetitive, but damn it’s hilarious.

It’s wonderful because of its absurdity and not because of any outright spoof-age.  Because it tends to be more absurd, the balance between what is straight-faced and winking is brilliantly thin.  That’s the way I like my comedy.  I don’t how Oprah and Dr. Huxtable are going to feel about this record, however.