Justin 'Tha Shiznute' ChandlerLast week resident writer Jordan Selbo reviewed a separate Scuba Chicken album entitled “Slim on Da Rise” as part of our ‘Back to the Lab’ portion in our never-ending quest to cover as much material as possible. Certainly no one was really dying to hear about that old Scuba Chicken joint, however Jordan had the heart to do it. In response to his spiteful review of the album I say “BRAVO!”, because he was spot on with his criticisms of this so-called artist. Scuba Chicken is back, even though nobody wants him to be on this, with “Quantity Over Quality”. The album lives up to the name as it spans over 21 tracks in a 69-minute running time without a single track being noteworthy for any artistic merit.
In fact give me a second so I can run out to the dumpster outside. There we go, much better! As a writer some really questionable material comes across my desk, but this, by far, takes the cake. The anticipation came to an immediate halt when gazing across the disgusting cover art of three old, fat, white women’s asses in bikini bottoms sitting on a rail. The tone of the album is really set with a statement like this as the disc makes a sad attempt to be humorous, but ultimately falls incredibly flat. Most of the ‘humor’ on this CD is simply disgusting and sounds like what a pre-pubescent 12-year old would conjure up on his Casio keyboard and just screwed around with it to appease his parents. Once again, this album is so bad that it is intolerable to listen through if you care about Hip-Hop music at all.
Though this album does not deserve the web space this review is taking up, here we go with the specifics of “Quantity Over Quality”. After hearing the beginning meanderings of Scuba Chicken it seemed like he might be building up to something or some joke worth listening to, but no. This is just some of the lyrical ridiculousness that sears the listener’s ears on “Scoobtastic”
“Scoobtastic is the way to be
I’m super cool, Can’t you see?
Got a gallon of pee in a tree
Oh gosh! Oh gee!
Gallon of pee in a damn tree
Yea yea y’know it
Chia Pet, go grow it
Chorus, now show it…”
And, quite sadly, it only gets worse from there. Seriously just take a second to look over those lyrics. Not only do the lyrics lack any sense of story or connectivity, but the rhyme scheme is as simplistic as humanly possible. All of this over a short and tense electric guitar riff coming from featured artist, Harvey. How does one like Scuba get a group of wannabe musicians that are as worthless as himself? One may suppose he grabbed Harvey, Axel, and Shack off the streets randomly and told them to start jamming. There are moments of brevity that the guitars are not purely garbage as they take over the instrumental aspect of the album, but really it is just thoughtless strumming when you think about how little of a process went into the creation of each song. Back to the main culprit, Scuba, who vocally sounds like the Jewish MC Paul Barman. MC Paul Barman actually had some catchy songs and it wasn’t purely juvenile spatter that Scuba constantly offers.
The ultimate low, if only one could be picked out of this mess, is in the harmonica-tinged “Ain’t Neva Gon Stop” as Scuba basically speaks the following:
“Hickery Dickery Dock
My hand went up her smock
You told me to get out my cock
Can’t stop the body rock
Can’t stop, won’t stop
I’m a hairy mop
That shoots out weiner slop
Scuba Chicken, gonna flock
flippity flop, hippity hop
Let’s chop-chop-chop
You got a nice little body shop
UhhhH! Y’know what I mean
Juggle my pinto beans…”
Etc. It’s like carrying out his wants by even putting these words on the page, like this is all Scuba wants out of his rap career–to make people read and write it–to waste everyone’s time.
We could discuss how different tracks differ from one another, yet that would be difficult seeing that they are all basically a variation of the same scum. The worst part of the album might be the fact that the highly-respected Peanut Butter Wolf actually lent his name to another (the first being “The Other Side of LA” featuring PBW and Madlib, but Scuba makes this album look like “Illmatic”) poor album. When searching for answers on what part the California DJ-Producer played in this it can be found in the liner notes that he simply was “Kickin it hardcore”, so assumedly that means he did nothing.
I challenge Scuba to a battle, why the hell not!? I feel that I could rap better than him on the basis that I have likely heard more actual quality rap albums in my lifetime than he. He sounds like Jamie Kennedy or Andy Milonakis on the mic. Also, he is basically spending his time over the course of this release and the previously reviewed “Slim On Da Rise” without any concern for rap music as an intended art form. Simply put, if Scuba were to somehow, miraculously, become popular, he would take the white rapper as far back as Eminem moved them forward. If you were to purchase this album (only logically in an extremely hazy mind-state), Scuba’s best joke would be on you.