Kool Keith - Black Elvis/Lost in Space (1999)

Kool Keith is to hip hop what Sun Ra is to jazz and George Clinton to funk. A weirdly liminal figure, Kool Keith exists both within and outside of the hip hop world, occupying an artistic space that encompasses depictions of the realities of life in the modern urban world, bizarre counterfactual alternate realities and wildly imagined intergalactic futures.


Over the years, Kool Keith has taken on a number of identities, twisted misfit personas who come on like comic book villains or characters from a William Burroughs novel: Dr Octagon is a rogue gynecologist, Dr Doom a crazed killer, Rhythm X, Mr Nogatco...the list goes on. Black Elvis is however, the world's greatest rapper, a rhyming phenomenon bringing the world the sounds of the future. Kool Keith says of his multiple personality disorder: "I have a lot of ideas. I'm not like the average rapper stuck with an image. A lot of these rappers are uncomfortable. They're stuck with an image that they have to maintain." In these terms, Keith is an hip hop anomoly. Not tied to the gold chains, baggy pants and bad attitudes associated with mainstream hip hop, he becomes mobile, able to shift co-ordinates to occupy different levels and parallel universes.

Black Elvis is a great album, chunky sci-fi beats and electro noise create queezy backdrops for Keith's heavier than uranium rhymes. 'The Girls Don't Like the Job' is a particular favourite of mine. Here, Keith flips the rap cliches, taking on the role of tough office manager to bring us an ironic rhyme on the impossible economic position of female office workers.

Before you get to that, here's the hugely entertaining video for 'Livin Astro':


Tracklist:

1. Intro

2. Lost in Space

3. Rockets on the Battlefield

4. Livin' Astro

5. Supergalactic Lover

6. Master of the Game

7. I'm Seein' Robots

8. Static

9. Intro 2

10. Black Elvis

11. Maxi Curls

12. Keith Turbo

13. Fine Girls

14. Girls Don't Like the Job

15. Clifton

16. All the Time

17. I Don't Play

Get record 1 HERE and record 2 HERE.