Bush Meat

Rapper Infinite Livez was, during his previous life, an art student and comic-book artist named Steven Henry. Those beginnings fully inform Bush Meat, his full-length debut for Big Dada, one of the prime sources for British rap (New Flesh, Roots Manuva) in the new millennium. Obsessed with fluids on a level that rivals the Piss Christ and flaunting his vision of comical, cartoonish soap opera, Infinite certainly doesn't bore with his rhymes. "The Adventures of Lactating Man" and "White Wee Wee" lead the way, the first presenting an unlikely case study ("I know it sounds filthy, but I get all milky/whenever my baby's squeezing my nipples, making me dribble") and the second an ode to sperm that sounds not explicit as much as oddly physiological. (Like Kool Keith's, Infinite Livez' raps are far too bizarre to rank as sensual.) Bush Meat mostly avoids the Big Dada bashment sound (unfortunately), though the rattling technoid piece "Claati Bros" comes close. An ill fit with the vocals, most of the productions are smoother '80s influenced tracks, though the opener (and highlight) "Worcestershire Sauce" sounds like a ten-years-after version of DJ Premier's classic productions for Jeru the Damaja's The Sun Rises in the East. Bush Meat is a noble failure, a striking, unusual record within a rap genre that became surprisingly conservative after the turn of the millennium. ~ John Bush