Meanest Man Contest - Merit (Plug Research, 2003)

Meanest Man Contest
Merit
Plug Research
2003

Rating: 7.5 arm wrestling tournaments out of 10

All Music guide has this to say about Meanest Man Contest – "Oakland's Meanest Man Contest is like Boards of Canada doing hip-hop". I would say this assessment is pretty spot on; for the most part, the music ranges between Boards-style mellow electronica and DJ Shadow-type beats, with Eriksolo having a voice pretty similar to Lateef from Latyrx. Although I was once a big hip hop kid back in the day (read as - early to mid-nineties, when jazz began getting infused into hip-hop, inspiring new sounds from Gang Starr and their offshoots Jeru and Group Home, Tribe/De La crew, all the Hieroglyphics peoples, etc.), my interest in the genre soon waned with the on set of the Puff Daddy crew and all those awful samples, bad rapping, and fixation with luxury items like fancy cars, big jewelry, and expensive champagne. If I wanted to hear about this crap, I’d go hang around with a bunch of rich white people. Anyways, in the last few years things have been making small turnaround, in the underground at least: all of The Solesides crew have been producing some fine material, Dalek is one of the most unique groups out there in any genre, and El-P has done a lot of interesting things as well. Now you can add Meanest Man Contest to this list of new and exciting rising stars in the world of underground hip-hop. This is a 2 man affair – Quarterbar produces the music (who is also in the great band Jim Yoshi Pile Up, check out their releases on Absolutely Kosher Records), and Eriksolo does the rapping and twiddles a few knobs himself. It’s groups like this that make me feel a little less disenfranchised about hip hop, and happy to be listening once again.