Artist: Fatlip Album: The Lonliest Punk Label: Delicious Vinyl Rating: 4/5

By this point in the career of Pharcyde exile Fatlip, written accounts of his work often employ the phrase ‚Äúself-deprecating.‚Äù Fatlip‚Äôs long-anticipated solo debut, TheLoneliest Punk, has already accrued such descriptions, but the label is misleading: Fatlip sings the blues, and in that respect is self-affirming, not the other way round. Like other blues musicians, by allowing his audience in to his struggles and his faults, he lets us know how human ‚Äì how okay ‚Äì it is to experience our own struggles and insecurities, our own battles with human existence. The result is a refreshing, funny, and brilliant album. 

There are a host of other, cockier, MCs whose music could also be likened to the blues; hip-hop in itself shares certain common aesthetic values with that older art form, not to speak of ancestry. Before bling became real, when rappers rhymed about criminal or sexual fantasies, that used to be the blues. But now rap is a big industry, and when Jay rhymes about diamonds one could reasonably assume that he’s often talking about his own, even though one could also reasonably assume that to his audience, it’s still a part of the wish fulfillment that it was 20 years ago. That separation between an artist and his/ her audience is problematic; artists stop becoming vessels, and instead become icons.

Back when they were kids, Fatlip and his Pharcyde brothers-in-arms recognized the drawbacks of criminal and money-related fantasies in their art, drawing stark parallels with the extended Native Tongues family on the East Coast. The Phracyde not only threw away the violence of their gangsta rap contemporaries, they also threw away the revolutionary fantasies of politically-themed rap artists, and in that sense shared much more in common with their audience than either. On their first album, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, they rhymed about normal things, and had fun doing it. They rhymed the dozens; they rhymed about chasing girls and not getting them. And even though they weren’t as Afrocentric as their peers, there was an inherent optimism in their music; as if making music for fun, just for the sake of having fun, was worth it. That era, however, is gone. Perhaps a fun-loving, nearly hedonistic philosophy was too utopian to grow old with, or perhaps the feel-good vibes of that hip-hop era died when the world got cold and cynical again, but regardless, it’s all changed now.

Or maybe Fatlip just grew up. Instead of making an album steeped in the commonality of good times, TheLoneliest Punk is a piece of art that does better than that – allows us to share its bad times, and feel better for it. Here, the album offers, is a man struggling with the seriousness of his adulthood, with being separated from his baby’s mother, with seeing his kid only occasionally, suffering from bouts of depression and insecurity, who has trouble making songs that mean something but is unable to force himself to write some bullshit. Fatlip presents us with his own existential struggle - he knows that he has to keep on trying, moving, doing, and searching for meaning, all the while knowing that meaning is fleeting, and that the frustrating importance is in the moving.

The unshakable sadness of the album is best represented by the song that made this album long awaited by numerous fans, “What’s Up Fatlip,” a single released way back in 2000, in which Fatlip laments the reversal of his fortune – friends who have turned on him, lies spread about him, and his own insecurities catching up with him. The brilliance of the song might, to a less-talented MC, weaken a follow-up album in contrast, but instead TheLoneliest Punk works the themes of its five-year old single – and its sound – seamlessly and honestly into the rest of its offerings, demonstrating that “What’s Up, Fatlip?” was no happy accident. Insecurity, humor, false bravado, and bitter reality weave throughout the album: in “Writer’s Block,” Fatlip rhymes about his lack of good material to rap about; on “Joe’s Turkey,” he rhymes about borrowing from his sister and living with his mother to make ends meet; “The Story of Us” and “Dreams,” both of which narrate his struggles to figure out his family life, let us in to his search for redemption.

The mistakes that warrant that search for redemption, which Fatlip makes no bones about, include too many alcohol and drug binges, specifically coke ones. The numerous coke references only augment the eerie similarity in style to Big Baby Jesus himself, Ol’ Dirty Bastard. We first heard Fatlip’s ODB impersonation on a collaboration ten years ago on Labcabincalifornia (on “All Live”), but on this album, Fatlip’s styles includes ODB’s trademark off-key screaming, his vibrato, his throaty, guttural singing, and even some of his rhyme patterns. Whether he made these changes before or after ODB’s death in 2004 is unclear, as this album has been about five years in the making. When Fatlip shouts out Ol’ Dirty on “Joe’s Turkey,” the acknowledgment only underlies the homage Fatlip is clearly paying to Russell Jones, whose recent death makes this album even more poignant. Fatlip’s not biting, he’s channeling, and doing it well.

The vocal styles have changed, but the songwriting style – that of pure, weird honesty – remains the same. On “First Heat,” Fatlip claims that he wants to “reclaim my name again.” He wants to be respected again. It’s real that counts, and he’s been real with his audience; now it’s his turn to see whether those fans who made this album hyped up over the years are going to be real to him: “If I’m not mistaken, it’s taken five years in the making, now we will see who real and who fakin.” The xylophone-synthesizer production, like most production on the album, only shows that he’s back on the top of his game, and deserves that respect.

“Today’s Your Day” perhaps most resolutely channels ODB, and is also probably the funkiest track on the album. The chorus is so catchy it’s hard to avoid singing along by the end of the first verse, and then Chali 2na steps in to deliver one of album’s few, but amazing, cameos. This is a fun song, and clever: half-way through the song Fatlip changes a line in the chorus from “today’s your day, babe,” to “today’s your payday.” He’s finished the album, now it’s time to get paid. And that’s a celebration.

But he‚Äôs not being greedy; it‚Äôs just that this money has been a long time coming. In ‚ÄúJoe‚Äôs Turkey,‚Äù he impresses upon us that the refrain ‚ÄúGet money, make  money‚Äù is more of a necessity than a luxury. He hasn‚Äôt been living like a superstar. The sentiment is again evoked in ‚ÄúWriter‚Äôs Block‚Äù: ‚Äúthe only way I pay rent / I represent / the only way I eat / I rhyme to a beat / the only way I buy clothes / I rock shows / now you can see why the problem is posed.‚Äù He needs to make these songs to eat. ‚ÄúWriter‚Äôs Block‚Äù is truly a poverty-stricken song, as Fatlip rhymes about knowing he has to write about something, but has nothing. That he has made a song about this alone is a story of survival, of making something out of nothing.

But Fatlip does, indeed, have much of real substance to offer on the album, as we see in the next song, “The Story of Us,” in which Fatlip relates how he’s come to terms with his children’s mother, separated from him for the past year. She’s independent now, and instead of resenting her for the past, Fat Leezy puts the priorities of his children in front of both of them. It is, simply, amazing songwriting. When, after a short intro, the organ-synthed danceable beats of “Cook” swing into motion, this seems like a change in direction, as Fatlip rhymes as if he’s picking up a girl at a club, but the chorus soon reveals his true intention: “hey baby / do you think, maybe / that one day / you can be my lady? / You look good, can you cook? / Let me put your number in my phone book.” He’s looking for a fuck, but he really just wants someone who can take care of him. As the last verse finishes, he’s telling his potential hook-up that he’s incredibly lonely, and just bored of it. Unorthodox, and hilarious.

But “Y’all On Fly,” another attempt at seduction, is more orthodox, and is a less successful song. A soulful, shiny chorus complemented the seriousness of “The Story of Us,” but falls flat on this one. Fatlip’s humor saves the song from being skip-friendly, but still doesn’t save it from being, unfortunately, probably the only blip on an otherwise masterful album.

“Freaky Pumps” is another nasty song about women, but works much better than “Y’all On Fly.” The song, like so many of the songs on this album, perfectly complements its somber themes with on-the-surface abrasiveness: a strip club, the song’s setting, is really the perfect place for a collaboration peace with Volume 10, Shock G, and Shock’s alter ego Humpty Hump, and is another comedic gem.

And then there’s “What’s Up Fatlip,” whose lyrics, on their own, paint a picture of a man blessed with talent, but who squandered it all, and is left to face his insecurities alone: “Who am I kiddin, who am I foolin / when they be like ‘What’s up, Fatlip?’ / and I say ‘Coolin.’” The utter honesty of the lyrics, however, become more poignant and unnerving when the laugh track comes in. That laugh track is all of the members of Fatlip’s audience who find his tribulations interesting solely for their entertainment, who look at Black music as minstrelsy. Fatlip is a weirdo, but he’s no clown, a role he feels unfairly cast in. But for those of us who have shared the feelings of insecurity, depression, and/or paranoia that “What’s Up, Fatlip?” so eloquently portrays, the song is an uplifting one: despite all of this shit, all these bad times, Fatlip still moves onward; he keeps trying. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, he’s made a song about it, a song his audience can share, and treasure, when and if times are bad.

The brilliance of “What’s Up Fatlip” makes a following act nearly impossible, but Fatlip ventures into the nearly impossible on this album, and succeeds, as the next song, “Dreams,” rivals its predecessor as the best song on the album. Fatlip takes the role of talking man-to-boy to his son, giving him advice, confident that he has something to offer despite understanding that he’s a faulty individual. And by the end of the song, we’re confident that Fatlip’s a good Dad. Just like this album: Fatlip has his faults, his insecurities, but that’s what makes him human, and his admission of this, and struggle to make good of it, is what makes this album so special.

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