Pitchfork

To prevent (or provoke) reader mail crying foul, let me state right up front that I think Kidz in the Hall-- Naledge and Double-O-- are great guys. I like them. We would probably get along and have things to talk about. They both graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, a fine school. They are both committed to being positive role models in the community, hip-hop and otherwise. They both have a love and a gift for music that is undeniable. I think it's great that they are getting the opportunity to resurrect a once great independent label, Rawkus Records. I think it's great that super-producer Just Blaze thinks they're great. I am totally happy for Kidz in the Hall, and if they succeed, I will raise a glass in their honor. Now, take a deep breath, because none of that makes this a great record. If kids start reading, crime rates drop, race and gender relations improve, and the sky clears all due to School Was My Hustle, I will be stoked, but I won't feel obligated to change my mind.

What Naledge and Double-O represent, and what they are asking of us, is nothing new. Every time the bad guys sell lots of records, we get a good guy movement. Native Tongues were fed up with gangsta rappers. Old Rawkus was a response to Bad Boy and Death Row. And Kidz in the Hall, on the new Rawkus, are offering an alternative to current trends. The difference is that Native Tongues' De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, and Leaders of the New School and Rawkus groups like Company Flow and Black Star were offering something new, something equally as exciting as their counterparts. A real alternative. They made records that, if you were looking for a reason to like rap, again or at all, you could get behind because they were weird or funny or both, but always intelligent. What we get from Naledge and Double-O is a record that wants to be that but doesn't know how. It's tentative, guarded and self-conscious, and relies too much on bringing something back (i.e. "real hip-hop") instead of bringing something different.

Naledge can definitely rap, and Double-O chops a nice sample. But their songs are all brains and no heart. The two best examples of this are the single "Go Ill" and "Don't Stop", a song with an almost identical beat to Jay-Z's recent and ubiquitous "Show Me What You Got". The former, a nice little slab of blaxploitation funk with a flinty flute loop, features Naledge telling his (or someone's) tale of life on the streets of South Side Chicago. After all the business of being an Ivy League rapper, he offers nothing more than rote images of drinking and fucking. Yeah, smart kids drink and fuck too, but that's not what he's talking about. His story is no different than the thousands of dum-dums before him.

"Don't Stop", on the other hand, provides a stark example of why Naledge is not on the level of your favorite rapper. Because Double-O let his buddy Just Blaze steal his beat, Naledge is caught out in a blizzard of better verses. The list of rappers who have already destroyed Jay-Z on this beat is arm's length, and unfortunately for Naledge, he's below Jay on that list. It's a production that demands breathless energy or ridiculous bravado, and you can barely hear Naledge on it. And when you do, it's something like, "Niggas talkin' out they ass and still not sayin' shit." C'mon, Penn English Department!

But that's the running issue with School Was My Hustle: There's little evidence that school was actually their hustle. Naledge doesn't talk about it in any great detail, and Double-O could have just as easily honed his Just Blaze Jr. impression in Just Blaze's studio. Save your parents some money, dudes. Because if the lesson here is that school is an alternative to crime as a way out of the streets, then shouldn't Naledge be talking about how great college was? Keggers, co-ed dorms, pretentious philosophy majors, eh, co-ed dorms. It seems like a missed opportunity, especially considering Kanye's recent successes in flaunting ignorance. He's what your professor might have called a "strawman," perfect for making wildly entertaining generalizations about stuff. Again, I don't have any problem with Ivy League graduates making a rap record instead of using their degrees to get a real job. I just wish that they'd used their Ivy League degrees to make a better rap record.