Steve 'Flash' JuonIf you’ve heard about “Feature Magnetic” it’s 100% because the late MF DOOM is featured on the track “Super Hero.” Daniel Dumile fans will take any scraps or morsels they can get and the official music video (better described as a “visualizer”) makes no apologies about that. It prominently features DOOM’s famous Metal Face mask, the one inspired by Victor von Doom a/k/a Dr. Doom. Keith Thornton draws inspiration from many worlds ranging from pornography to comic books so it should come as no surprise that he has two Dr. Dooom albums of his own. It should come as no surprise that the two worked together.
You might be surprised to know though that this isn’t a posthumously made song. “Super Hero” was released back in 2016 when Dumile was still alive and well. The collaboration was big enough news that it even garnered a Billboard article/interview with Kool Keith. Every single thing here was released on September 16th, 2016. You might conclude that Keith included a L’Orange remix as a bonus track on “Feature Magnetic” to freshen things up when he released the album, but I honestly prefer the original to the L’Orange take and given my respect for him that came as a surprise.
The conceit of this album is that Keith is not just Ultramagnetic but literally a magnet for attracting rappers to work with him. That’s fair. There are only a handful of people in rap today who have been around as long as him, fewer still who are still recording new material, and fewer still who have such an incredibly deep catalogue of music. The downside though is that Keith likes to self-produce much of his music and this release is no exception — he does 11 of the 15 songs found here using the pseudonym Number One Producer. Respectfully Keith that’s a lie. Once in a while he does strike gold with his unorthodox musical techniques though and “Cold Freezer” with Bumpy Knuckles is a good example.
Even when it works you can’t help but notice the difference between Keith and his guests. The rapper also known as Freddie Foxxx has tightly written and easily coherent bars, while Keith took an acid tab and started rambling things like “A hundred dalmatians in the pickup truck, scarlet red/Santa Clause lookalikes, lose weight and get on your sled/Under the door I feed these cats a calorie like bread.” Nothing seems to have anything to do with anything else. It’s a completely random series of non-sequitur phrases that are strung together only because they occasionally rhyme. When Keith can’t muster his best effort as a “number one producer” the result is he leaves even close friends like Godfather Don hanging on “Stratocaster.”
Kool Keith fandom forces you to be on the defensive. It makes you apologize for shit that’s objectively bad because he’s “eccentric” or “wildly creative.” Even as such a fan I find it hard to defend songs like the awful “World Wide Lamper” featuring B.a.R.S Murre & Dirt Nasty. I don’t even rate Simon Rex as an emcee (let alone a VJ) and he still deserved better than a bland electronic beat with no head nodding qualities whatsoever. You’d think a rapper almost as wild and outrageous as Keith like Necro would have gotten a good joint on “Girl Grab” but we’d have been better off if Necro laced the cut himself.
I’ve been sugarcoating this long enough — “Feature Magnetic” is bad. The range of guests is impressive. Sadat X, Slug from Atmosphere, Mac Mall and Craig G just to name a few. That alone should have made this an incredible album but it doesn’t work. These skilled emcees try their best to work with Keith but with a few notable exceptions they sound as mismatched as the production. If you bought “Super Hero” a la carte you’d be getting the best and most noteworthy part of the album. The rest will be forgotten by all but Keith Thornton’s most die-hard followers — ones who are even more enamored with his legacy than me.