Rap Traffic

By day, Kid Acne is an illustrator who creates brilliant album covers for Caural and others as well as publishing his own comic, Zebra Face. By night, though, he takes his creative mind to a different place, delivering crunchy, minimal beats and heavily but hilariously cliched lyrics. And bear in mind that his oeuvre of work starts long before the ragtag, day-in-the-life-of-a-geezah renderings of the Streets. Acne, an up-from-the-ground British MC with a strange vocal delivery and twisted yet imaginative lyrics, melds lo-fi production, courtesy of producer Req One, with typically old school hip-hop banter. Of course, old school doesn't sound all that old when it comes from the mouth of a young Brit. Like his peers and those from whom he takes influence, Kid Acne's personal prowess is constantly overstated throughout Rap Traffic. Lines like "I'm driving emcees around in hearses/...And everywhere I go I leave a path of curses" on "Bus Stop Emcee" are especially memorable. Though his flow and production don't hold a candle to the sleek, laptop-inspired beats of Mike Skinner and his triumphant Original Pirate Material, certain elements of Rap Traffic stand out far above anything that the Streets might pull out of his hat. Acne is far more scathing and satirical when he delivers his goofily crafted rhymes and he just seems to have a better sense of humor, which he also injects into his mutant animal comics. While Rap Traffic can seem like a jumbled mess of hip-hop inspiration at times, it has plenty of potential and is a sure sign of greater things to come in underground indie hip-hop. ~ Ken Taylor|