Super What? - CZARFACE & MF DOOM: Review
CZARFACE
is the collaborative hip hop project of Boston duo 7L and Esoteric alongside New York MC and Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck. The group had a few records under their belt already before originally collaborating with hip hop legend MF DOOM on 2018's Czarafce Meets Metal Face. Since then they released a handful of other projects including a critically successful team up with fwllow Wu-Tang alum Ghostface Killah in 2019. Super What? is the first time we have heard new MF DOOM music since it was announced at the tail end of last year that he had passed away, and its unclear how much material he left behind.
Review By Lav:
While I've always been a fan of CZARFACE, most of the hype I had going into this record was for hearing MF DOOM again. I have all the respect in the world for DOOM's talent and was incredibly broken up by his passing. On top of my admiration for his work I also enjoyed his previous collaboration with the CZARFACE boys. There was no reason for me to think this record would be anything but a solid, if not a bit short set of tracks showing off the talents of all individuals involved. When all is said and done it does have that talent, but the problems with its short length as a project also applying to some of its under-structured songs.
The record has plenty of highlights and isn't afraid to announce them pretty loudly starting with the opener The King And Eye. While the track is mostly taken up by its intro and outro samples it has a DMC feature that makes for a fittingly hard-hitting introduction to the record. DOOM Unto Others is a banging DOOM and Esoteric track that I've come to enjoy quite a bit. DOOM bounces rapidly between lyrical topics over a weirdly relaxed beat with distorted groaning looped into the background. Eso delivers a great verse full of more sharp lyrical references than I can count to tie the track up and it all blends together perfectly. Jason & The Czargonauts is easily my favorite song on the entire record with a comic booky beat reminiscent of some early 2000's DOOM work and INS does a great job fitting in with that level of over the top eccentricity to kick the song off. Eso's verse starts off with a great lyrical reference to the fact that Czarface has been wearing asks since before COVID and maintains that level of lyrical wit throughout. Del The FUnky Homosapien of all people ends the track off and absolutely kills his feature with a congident demeanot and some genuinely sharp and hilarious contemporary lyrical references.
Break In The Action is a jazzier cut with an incredibly relaxed beat that DOOM wastes no time delivering lyrical gymnastics over. It's one of the best and most involved DOOM verses on the record and I couldn't love it more as an introduction to the track. Both Edo and INS drop great verses of their own with a ridiculous array of lyrical references spanning Radiohead, Game Of Thrones, Cobra Kai, Bojack Horseman, The Clash and the Kareem era Lakers just for a start. This Is Canon Now is a great track that Eso dominates. It is thematically tied to Eso listing off every super hero he can think of, and then following it up with why he is better than them. It features one of my favorite lyrics on the entire record where he threatens Batman that he'll be "robbin him and robbin Robin".
A lot of these tracks have solid moments but I'd be lying if I said they didn't suffer a bit compositionally. Czarwyn's Theory Of People Getting Loose kicks off with fireworks from INA. The beat gets a bit darker on the back half and DOOM delivers a fittingly villainous verse. The Esoteric contribution on the end of the song is one of my least favorite moments the record has to offer but thankfully the beat is changing in subtle ways throughout making the song interesting at the very least. So Strange also has a comic book like beat, that's really the only way I can describe it you'll know what I mean when you listen to it. DOOM delivers one of his slicker verses and while it may not have much focus it definitly has quotables. The Godforbid hook is pretty catchy and sounds like it's coming out of haunted house speakers which adds to the track in some ways and subtracts in others. The Esoteric verse on the back end is fine but not fantastic enough to really make the song feel amazing.
Mando Calrissian suffers the most from composition as it features a much more relaxed jazzier instrumental with short verses from everyone involved. DOOM shines the brightest but when all is said and done I'm pretty underwhelmed by the songs presentation. The closing track Young World is the worst song on the record by leaps and bounds. It has one of the albums only true hooks and I'm not a huge fan of it but that is the least of its problems. The songs topical focus is all about giving advice to a young woman but it is extremly poorly thought out. While they do give some legitimately good advice at points it is sandwiched by extremely patronizing and frankly very boomer advice. I understand what they were going for but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Super What? delivers on the promise of the talents involved in its creation, no more and no less. While there is a lot here I enjoyed it clearly has its limitations and at under half an hour those limitations stand out more strongly. On the flip side there are plenty of memorable songs and moments, plus hearing new material from MF DOOM is a treat that we may only experience a few more times ever again. 6.5/10
This cover is cool and they've taken a concept that is overly done but still did it well. The colors are striking and the line quality is good but I'm a little underwhelmed even though there's a lot going on. It's just not at the level I know it could be and that disappoints me. It's good and gets the job done but doesn't really have any wow factor because it just looks like an ordinary comic strip and nothing more. 6/10
