Boston's Edan may come off as an obsessed fan-boy of late '80s hip-hop, an acolyte schooled in the furious braggadocio of Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap. Stylistically, with his own furiously fast rhymes and tommy gun beats, it's obvious this is where he draws his inspiration from. However, Beauty and the Beat does far more than shout out Edan's personal pantheon or clone their microphone mannerisms. Beauty is a tightly bound effort clocking in at an efficient 34 minutes, with 13 briskly paced tracks that flow with impressive coherency. Edan mines the surreal swirls and moody loops of '60s psychedelic rock. His heavy density of fuzzed-out guitar screeches, dreamy horn wails, and sci-fi sound effects create a unique sonic bed that complements Edan's imaginative (and often non-sequitur) lyricism. Whatever Edan's rhymes may lack in topicality, they brim with style, offering more than clever punchlines and catchy hooks. This is an MC who still appreciates the basic pleasure of word play. --Oliver Wang
Edan
Beauty and the Beat
[Lewis; 2005]
Rating: 8.8
Edan is quite the character: With him, it's either "Sing it, shitface" or an exercise in hip-hop erudition, as heard on his Fast Rap mixtape. Which is why one never knows what to expect from his recorded output. His debut LP, Primitive Plus, mixed the retarded with the ingenious; it was an entertaining album in a backpacker era that was more often redundant than refreshing. So, when photos of the newly hirsute Edan emerged and rumors of a "rock" record made the rounds, it became easy to imagine a Derek/Biggie Smalls concept album replete with irony and wankery. This record is no joke. Having established himself as a ruthless wit and tireless scholar of rap, Edan makes the leap to "serious artist" on Beauty and the Beat, exhibiting an auteurism that places him level with his predecessors instead of prostrate before them.
On lead single "I See Colours", Edan declares, "Prince Paul already used this loop/ But I'ma keep it movin'/ And put you up on the scoop." The lyric is a synopsis of Edan's new outlook. Yes, it's been done before, but not like this. The song is his epiphany over a 60s jangle and mushrooming Moog effects. Like a master mathematician who suddenly sees the pattern in the formula, Edan commences his solution.
One more time before he blows your mind, Edan pays respects to the "true scientists". "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme" is a timeline of the forgotten founders. True, many of the names he drops are familiar, but-- as many of the mentioned could tell you-- respect is the only restitution to them. Over a runaway break, Edan pays dues to the Fatback Band on up, providing a syllabus for future pupils.
The nightmarish diptych of "Murder Mystery" and "Torture Chamber"-- the latter featuring Percee P's lyrical conveyor belt over the churning bass-line from Pink Floyd's "On the Run"-- bleeds into "Making Planets", an organ dirge backing Edan's laidback braggadocio that changes gears into a Crazy Horse-ish Mr. Lif conspiracy theory. Each song transitions to the next through the ever-present Moog noodlings and shared elements, an effort at a hip-hop long-player and not simply a collection of singles.
"Rock and Roll" applies Black Sabbath, Velvet Underground, and Talking Heads to create a psychedelic ode to its titular genre, and "Science of the Two" is a tangled mass of Edan and Insight that rivals Run-DMC for seamless vocal interplay.
On the latter half of the album, "Beauty", "Smile", and "Promised Land" are three sample-packed masterpieces that compress the time between '68 and '88. Reversed drum loops, found sounds, droning feedback, Echoplexed vocals, syrupy strings, and truckloads of bubbling Moog intermingle with Edan's Kane-with-a-cold mic skills to astonishing effect.
The gravity of Edan's lyrics and voice on Beauty and the Beat is perhaps its most surprising element. He's gone from a brainiac prankster to the Borges of rap. Even his battle rhymes have a surrealist bent. He doesn't wear watches by Jacob. He "wears the Time Meridian as a wristband." He doesn't grace stages. He "does the show on a fireball." He doesn't wear his own clothing line. He "put a nameplate on a asteroid belt."
Edan satirizes the narcissism of hip-hop by being so out-there narcissistic that someone would basically have to say, "I'm the best MC times infinity" to compete. But it's more than just his otherworldly assertions. Nearly every bar is a saturated image of his subconscious put on display to ponder its meaning. Some of it may just be nonsense but most if it is resonant. His lyrical inventiveness and idiosyncratic metaphors place him in a category populated by few.
Edan is hip-hop, without a doubt. But he's the hip-hop that appeared in the suburbs in the late-80's and shared time with metal and indie rock, when MTV's weekend line-up was "Yo!MTVRaps", "120 Minutes", and "Headbangers Ball", with Public Enemy likely to find time on all three. Beauty and the Beat sounds like a record made by someone who once devoured the catalog and history of his favorite artists, traced their lineage as far back as he could, and has discovered his place in the genealogy. With that enlightenment, Edan is no longer an impersonation of his idols, but one of their peers.
-Peter Macia, April 18, 2005
Review by Joshua Glazer
Boston's Edan has scored the hip-hop triple crown, rapping, programming and sampling at a masters level on his second full-length. As an MC, he bows down while hyping himself up on the wink-nudge titled "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme," giving extended shout-outs to the history of hip-hop, from Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash through to Ultramagnetic MC's and Prince Po, all over a break as dusty and faded as an episode of Carnivale. "Polite Meeting" offers a beat and sample collage on par with the current work of DJ Shadow and RJD2, and one is left to really ponder at the possibility of Edan trying to perform the beats and vocals live. Def Jux bright star Mr. Lif makes a guest appearance on the heavily psychedelic "Making Planets," which leads into a full-on Hendrix-inspired freaky-blues interlude. Percee P and Insight also drop by to flow over some of Edan's time and space warping musical beds (to call these "beats" would be an immense oversimplification) but Dagha guests on the grittiest rocker, "Rock'N'Roll" which manages a full-on Marshall stack set to ten, and a guitar assault that somehow avoids all of the failings of rap-rock. If hip-hop had existed in the days of the Filmore, Woodstock and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Edan would have been right on the bus.
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