Grant JonesLike any teenager of the 2000s, I was impressionable, prone to the usual hormonal changes that affect mood and behaviour. A brain still developing, yet susceptible to outside influences, I also happened to be an obsessive rap fan with access to the Internet. A rapper like Vinnie Paz, of Jedi Mind Tricks “fame”, was a favourite of mine, combining violent carnage in his lyrics with an imposing, aggressive delivery that just sounded the antithesis to what was dominating the pop charts at the time. It was like hearing M.O.P. if they had been locked in a library. The obscure historical references felt laser-targeted to an audience that was interested in learning, and perhaps more accurately, sounding smart.
It was said that Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” saw a 217% spike in searches online for the luxury shoewear brand Christian Louboutin (“These expensive, these is red bottoms, these is bloody shoes.” ), but I’m doubtful the same happened for sales of The Tibetan Book of the Dead when I dropped thirty notes on a leatherbound copy of it in 2004 after hammering the “Legacy of Blood” CD to death in my Discman. Two decades later, I can’t imagine a 17-year old me doing the same after listening to Vinnie Paz in 2024. Context is key, as the mid-2000s saw Jedi Mind Tricks regularly touring Europe, and importing CDs still felt novel – I just consumed music more intimately back then. But my point is that Vinnie Paz is offering something rather different today, and has done so for the last fourteen years since he “went solo”. I think that Vinnie has shifted to a simpler style with each iteration of his rap persona, diluting part of what made him special in the first place. As Ikon the Verbal Hologram, he was sharing overly wordy verses consisting of complex vocabulary you wouldn’t hear from other rappers:
Perhaps his most acclaimed album remains 2000’s “Violent by Design”, a cult classic that saw him refine his flow and sharpen his writing style. He was saying more with fewer words but retained that interesting vocabulary that evoked such startling imagery. “I’m savage, I write rhymes in pitch blackness”, “My vibrance will span to Negril, with the violence of Hamburger Hill”, “Causing head spasms, rip through your motherf***ing temple like Phantasm”. It’s brutal, yet possessed its own majesty, particularly when coupled with Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind’s cinematic production. Listening back now, it still holds up (if you can stomach the raging homophobia), but it only highlights how different Vinnie’s output has been since he branched off outside of the Jedi Mind Tricks brand. Naturally, JMT is its own thing, and the Vinnie Paz records explore the more human side of one of rap’s most violent emcees, which itself can be flawed given he’s still merciless in his approach to hardcore Hip-Hop. This new EP, “Jacinto’s Praying Mantis”, sounds like a Jedi Mind Tricks album name, and with promotional writing referring to the music as “the latest seance from Vinnie Paz”, I found myself hoping it would be a return to the glory of those ludicrously outlandish rhymes that captured me all those years ago.
Vinnie Paz has a lot of albums that can touch on anything, from human vulnerabilities to wild conspiracy theories, but his go-to for most of his content is violence. If you follow him on social media, he often posts about boxing, and this EP kicks off with the infamous wrestler Bruiser Brody performing a promo. That’s essentially what Vinnie Paz is, a psychotic fighter detailing how he’ll beat his opponent, just in Hip-Hop form.
This EP is designed as a stopgap between the usual album cycle, but it doesn’t really offer much aside from the single “Blood Bank Affair”. Lyrics continue to feel fairly run-of-the-mill, with some songs even regurgitating previous rhymes – four years ago he had you “coming outta your shoes” on “The Compleat Theater”, now he has you “leaving your shoes” on “Contra Cocaine, and then returns to “liftin’ you outta your jeans” on “Blood Bank Theater”, These moments aren’t always immediately obvious, because the nouns are often distractions, yet the schemes and content can feel like duplicates.
The name of the album stems from a dream Vinnie had which relates to the image of Salvador Dali walking his pet anteater, but instead it was with a praying mantis (Jacinto being a nickname of Dali’s). Naturally, this bears no relation to the music within, but that’s par for the course when it comes to Vinnie (and JMT) – song names included. I thought Recognize Ali’s recent album had more than a bit of the Vinnie Paz about it, so it’s not surprising to hear them work together on “Brainscan Exorcism”, and it’s a solid collaboration but won’t linger in the memory.
A sense of deja vu happens with most rappers, once they’ve been around long enough, and Vinnie has certainly settled into a comfortable format for his verses. Gun-talk, belittling his opponents and controversial imagery are all here and well, it’s just the canvas he’s using is derivative. Beats are naturally morbid, and heavy hitting but also lifeless and ensure some songs sink into the background. It’s why a “Zoe Lund” stands out, and this swinging back-to-basics Hip-Hop is often a winning formula for Pazienza.
Eleven years ago, I reviewed his previous EP, 2013’s “Carry On Tradition“, and found it to be “decent for what it is, but carries on a tradition in Vinnie Paz records that needs to be broken by a bit more variety and dare I say it, humour.” Perhaps it has taken me a decade to convince myself that his output is no longer my cup of tea, but I feel the same about 2024’s “Jacinto’s Praying Mantis”. It’s solid, occasionally enjoyable, but for older fans it just feels too recycled to truly stand out from all the great rap music that’s around.