Rating:
  Review Date: July 26, 2007
  Website: C-Rayz Walz, Parallel Thought
  Label: Urchin Studios

C-Rayz Walz “Chorus Rhyme” Album Review
From my perspective, C-Rayz Walz is an emcee that has been victimized by the hyper-masculine know-it-all braggadocio attitude of music critics. Despite being one of the dopest and courageously-evolving rappers of our time, reviewers have dissed pretty much every album C-Rayz has ever made, and I think I know why.  

See, C-Rayz Walz is much more intelligent than the majority of us. The topics he discusses, or perhaps the manner in which he discusses them, are so far above the heads of most people that they can’t even begin to understand what he is saying. And this upsets many people. After all, nobody wants to admit that someone is smarter than him or her, right? So instead, they lash out at C-Rayz, calling his music inarticulate, tangential, schizophrenic, inconsequential, and even half-baked. Anything to keep from admitting that they are not capable of understanding, or just too lazy to do any research and actually attempt figure it out.

The newest release from the poetic mastermind, titled “Chorus Rhyme,” is no different. Probably fifty percent of C-Rayz’ verses are way over my head in this one. But that doesn’t bother me homie. Unlike insecure music critics, I treasure hip-hop that is challenging. I enjoy researching lyrics and making an attempt to understand. I like the fact that I can listen to an album for an entire month and still pick up new things. And in time, this album really starts to make a lot of sense. “Chorus Rhyme” is one of the year’s few hip-hop classics, and I just can’t stop listening to it.

A Hip-Hop Classic
So what makes it a classic? First, this album is progressive and trend setting. Despite being titled “Chorus Rhyme,” C-Rayz and Parallel Thought challenge traditional concepts of chorus, even leaving the hook out of some songs altogether. There are no R&B cats singing hooks. No breaks or pauses. Just dope beats and lyrics from start to finish. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an album that strays so far from the formula of modern day songs, as it ignores current trends and perceptions of what’s hot and offers nonstop verses, rhymes and lyrics. For those of you who can appreciate new directions, this album is packed with them. Vast Aire touches on this as a guest emcee in Chorus 5:

They say great minds think alike, here’s the ticker
The truth is fools seldom differ
Think fast cause somebody’s thinking quicker
I figure I’ll be that whiskey in your liquor

Second, this album is record breaking. Track ten does something that no song has ever done: It features thirty emcees on one track, each spitting eight bars a piece – no chorus, no hooks. And even more so, the featured emcees are from all sides of the hip-hop spectrum. The song opens up with a rock-and-roll-singing-rapping-hip-hop girl, ends with Immortal Technique, and touches upon countless styles and genres in between. It is by far the largest collection of unique emcees I’ve ever heard make music together, and they give amazing insight into the mainstream’s perceived need for a chorus or a hook, which C-Rayz attempts to define in his verse:

It’s what you need to catch fish with
The Candyman’s weapon of choice, Peter Pan’s arch nemesis
Just don’t let me connect one to your cheek
Cause if I do, you’ll tongue kiss your teeth for a week
Kareem Abdul jab y’all – I stay hittin’
No dunks but if the beat’s banging they don’t listen
That’s why my style is the science of Jux
I am Demetrius Mitchell – I am the Hook!

And third, the album is highly thought provoking. Virtually every verse C-Rayz spits, though often difficult to follow or understand, contains some kind of mind-boggling rhyme, contradiction, perspective or intellectualism that will have you rewinding to hear verses over and over again.

For example, C-Rayz opens the album with the following verse, which appears to question those who blame their faults or negative behaviors on external circumstances while questioning the reality of truth and knowledge:

Sperm bust the way gats do: Unexpectedly
Take life or create life: Very effectively
Blame it on your pops; Why? Cause he was a thug
Or you could blame it on your mom, cause she did drugs
Or blame it on your family for not spreading the love
But you make the final choice and you will be judged
There’s truth in everything, so I listen to fools
Cause I ain’t really learn nothing from my teachers at school

Another verse, which I have read and listened to like 100 times now and still don’t get, appears to make a statement on people who worship money:

Monkey see – forget how monkeys do
When they hang with gorillas and become one of the crew
With bandanas and boots
They turning cold but this bananas but truth
They money see and see money as truth
Those idolatries bleed coin less fruit
You got the gall to score, but you don’t got the balls to shoot
When the pigs walk in, we’ll see whose liver
Ordered a Bloody Mary woke up with a Screwdriver
The final call sounds, elephant guns clown the hungry
You can’t pin Armageddon on the tale of a donkey

Lyrically, this album is impossible to decipher and impossible to put down. Every time I listen to it, something new jumps out at me that makes me rewind, think, and attempt to figure it out. I bet it will do the same for you. But you got to get your hands on a copy ASAP – because this is the second in a three-part limited edition C-Rayz Walz collector series. Only 3,000 of each album will be made. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.

Overall, if I label an album as classic that means I think I will listen to it forever. Not daily, monthly or even yearly necessarily. But it will always stand out as something that I can throw in. When I’m eighty, hobbling around the house with a cane, drinking whiskey and smoking cigars, and just happen to run across C-Rayz Walz’ “Chorus Rhyme,” I’ll throw it in. And most likely, I’ll hear something that I had never heard before. That’s classic. Peace.

Album Track Listing:

1. Intro
2. Chorus 1
3. Chorus 2
4. Chorus 3 (feat. Trinity)
5. Chorus 4
6. Chorus 5 (feat. Vast Aire)
7. Chorus 6
8. Leo Chorus
9. Vomit Chorus (feat. MF DOOM)
10. Chorus Collection (feat. Levi, Hykoo, Messiah-J, Icon The Mic King, Kwote Scriptures, MC Caness, Wordworth, Karniege, Double AB, Dusted Dons, Tame One, Glock Rockwell, R.A. The Rugged Man, Stahhr the Femcee, L.I.F.E. Long, Sha-Dula, Marq Spekt, C-Rayz Walz, Thirstin Howl III, KLU Sheisty, Sean Price, Swave Sevah, Poison Pen, Chan, MC Unknown, Kosha Dillz, Block McCloud, Many Styles, Omega Moon, Immortal Technique)
11. DJ Chorus (feat. DJ Ruffneck, Turntable Anihhlist and DJ JS-1)