Time to buy some rap

Bill Forman wrote such an interesting piece about Busdriver that I'm going to have to pick up a couple of his songs. Because even if they don't sound entirely like G&S, it's hard to resist someone this engaging. And it will add another entry to the list of stuff that people wouldn't suspect that I have on MyPod.*

As on previous albums, he employs a rapid-fire delivery and convoluted rhyme schemes, like some unholy offspring of Jamaican dancehall deejay Bounty Killer and light opera savants Gilbert and Sullivan. Asked which he found more influential, Busdriver says he appreciates rap's debt to "old-school Jamaican toasters, but I never really sought that out. So I would have to say the latter. Unfortunately, I don't spend enough time with [Gilbert and Sullivan's work], but I know what you're talking about and I do shoot for things like that."

*Or in my bookcase. Unflattering f'rinstance: "You? Like Mamet? You? Really?"