Burrwells: The Rain Man

I just found this newly released CD by Rasaan J. "The Rain Man." Judging by his elongated name, this guy just can't choose between two different options that he thinks are both TOTALLY AWESOME!

And that's how Let's Ride goes for the most part. Producers DJ Boom and Scotty Beam rip-off every major producer of the last decade, from the Neptunes to Mannie Fresh, while Rasaan happily does his Flo-Rida/one-man-band thing over whatever they serve up. T-Pain HIMSELF even shows up for a bewildering two minute cameo. (At least I think it's T-Pain? You couldn't fake that voice right? It'd be impossible, right?) But the point is, despite it being an album featuring only a couple of producers, and one MC, it's all over the place, the artists refusing to commit to one sound or another.

It's harmless, faceless fun until everyone decides they want to spend the album's second half auditioning for G-Unit. Fifty does seem willing to hire various producers to rewrite "Magic Stick" for him over and over again, so who knows - maybe they actually have a shot.

Everything is redeemed, however by third track "Brazilian Shores." Apparently included amongst DJ Boom's 9,302 major influences is the Japanese shibuya-kei scene, and this track sounds like a DJ has taken source material popularized by a Fantastic Plastic Machine mix and mashed it with a dirty south club banger. Except it's an original track. Chron-didddly-on.

Actually, he probably just thought "Hips Don't Lie" was a sweet jam, typed "senorita musica" into Soulseek and ripped this one off too. But whatever. I prefer more meta in my explanations.

Unfortunately this track isn't up on his Myspace, although there is a high budget, on-location music video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M45WGGtrQp8

What the f@ck, I can't embed?!

Oh...