Sy ShacklefordDuring the fall season, and apparently now beginning on Halloween, it’s all about Christmas. If you go into nearly any retail establishment or if you have the misfortune of having the car radio as your vehicle’s sole source of audio media, then you know the sensations I’m referring to: Your eyes are assaulted with a barrage of ornaments, edibles, and seasonal representations in bi-chromatic red & green while your ears are bombarded by “A Clockwork Orange”-like repetitive loop of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You”. The fact is that people still love Christmas and it IS marketable, from themed movies to music albums. With the latter, it often tends to be standard fair: A singer giving their renditions of classic Christmas songs. Hip-hop has dabbled in the X-Mas spirit at times, most notably with RUN-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis”. Recently, Ohio-bred punchline master Copywrite released a 4-song EP (8 tracks in total counting the 4 corresponding instrumentals) entitled “It’s a XXX Mess”. With a title like that, it’s bound to make Billy Bob Thornton’s “Bad Santa” blush redder than his outfit.
With talk of the release of the sequel to his 2002 solo debut, “The High Exhaulted”, still underway, this EP is a stopgap until the market is ready to be flooded with “The High Exhaulted 2”. In his 20-plus years in the rap game, Copy’s demonstrated a talent for multis, flow, wordplay, metaphors, and the ability to keep up with the times while not changing his style. In three words/syllables, dude can rap. And with his skill set, he’s providing with us with his own humorous and skewed take on the Yuletide season.
Promoted with the posed question of “Why tolerate shitty holiday music?” prompts the question of “what’s different about THIS holiday music?” Well, put it like this: It’s the kind that not only hardcore Copywrite fans will listen to, but also the kind that I can see the title character of the “Jack Frost” horror franchise listening to as well. Produced mostly by Danish beatsmith Swab and Florida producer D1 having a Copywrite-assisted hand in the final song, the Christmas theme even extends to the cover with a Little Golden Books parody. To start things off is the Darlene Vogel-sampling “Three Hoes Falling”. Copy wastes no time in using his lyrical skills to give a rated-X spin on Christmas themes such as “I kill liquor, piss that out & / bust shots with a model: The Phil Spector Christmas album” and…well, hear the rest here:
There’s a tongue-in-cheek humorous exchange on the boom-bap head-nodder “White Christ-Mess” about Copywrite recycling his own lines for other songs and has several Christmas themed movie references from “Elf” to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”. On “Snot Angels”, Copy becomes “the Grinch in human form” and proceeds to leave twisted lyrical barbs in addition to lumps of coal in everyone’s Christmas stockings. The track has a very dark atmosphere about it, which is in contrast to the final song, the ironically-titled “Black X-Mas”. Produced by Copywrite and D1, the track has a definite trap-vibe about it. Though containing familiar 808 snares, it’s also got horns and Christmas carol bell samples that align it with the EP’s theme. The final four tracks are instrumentals for the songs. Copywrite’s a gifted emcee, which leaves more to be desired from him even on an EP intended as a joke. It’s not meant to be taken seriously, but the brevity of “It’s a XXX Mess” remains an Achilles’ Heel, even with Copy’s talent.