October 16, 2001
Cannibal Ox : Camden Monarch
Canibal Ox go way beyond the realm of regular hip-hop into a new zone.
As external strife and horror grip New York City, it's easy to forget the internal turmoil and seemingly permanent internecine warfare waged in its outer boroughs for years. Which is where Cannibal Ox come in - to lift the shroud from heavy ghetto situations and everyday living. With MC Vordul absent tonight, apart from occasional spooky samples of his voice on vinyl, it's left to MC Vast Aire and DJ Cip to lure an indie audience into the dusty musical catacombs of their hiphop netherworld. And there's a certain relish to the way an amped-up Vast, who gutturally psyches himself up with a few hiphop classics, spits his verses of realism and recovered memory.
The heart of Cannibal Ox is effectively one of darkness. With grooves minted by backroom boy El-P, late of Company Flow, and twisted, slightly re-imagined and rearranged by DJ Cip, the sonics go way beyond the realm of regular hiphop into a new zone. An aural no-go zone of electronic debris, monster beats and decidedly off-kilter rhythms that suggest a New York City way more warped than those who labelled it Gotham City imagined. On the evidence of 'Vein', where Vast describes an altercation with an armed 12-year-old, and paints abstract street scenes, Cannibal Ox trace the forgotten arteries of the city that never end up on television.
Which doesn't mean entertainment gets short shrift. Earlier, Brighton newcomers Mummy Fortuna's Theatre Company reduce a hostile room of B-boys into respectful silence with their light-speed flow and fractured, oblique beats. Vast Aire constantly hypes up the crowd, does a version of 'The F-Word' that goes beyond relationship analysis, makes people chant "My life's not right", and gets halfway through 'Scream Phoenix' before he realises the groove is actually for 'Pigeon'. DJ Cip, in his contribution, shows unconventional turntable scratching skills - the results of which border on the avant-garde. All in a night's makeshift work.
Dele Fadele
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