Fahrenh Eit 69

They Say...

Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

It's nice to know that some things never change -- almost 40 years after Clarence Reid transformed himself into Blowfly and began recording the filthiest R&B songs in recorded history, the man is still rappin' dirty and transforming otherwise respectable pop tunes into lewd documents of his freaky sexual obsessions. Having hooked up with a new backing band anchored by drummer Tom Bowker, Blowfly is in solidly grooving form on Fahrenheit 69, which boasts the feel of a live session rather than the robotic synths and drum machines that dominated Reid's 1990s Blowfly sessions. As far as the material goes, while Reid is keeping up with the times with random jokes about George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger (and name-checking Beyoncé Knowles and Britney Spears), for the most part this is Blowfly as listeners have always known him -- "Booty Bus" and "The Great Debate" reveal that the man's smut funk is still as nasty as he wants it to be (and just as funny), and "For Your Precious Cunt" and "I Believe My Dick Can Fly" prove he can take any song he wants and twist it into something that would embarrass whoever recorded it in the first place. And while the cameos from Afroman and Slug point to the fact that Blowfly's flow isn't the smoothest ever put on wax, his evolution into an authentic dirty young man seems to suit him and his music just fine. Fahrenheit 69 is one long dirty joke that you can dance to, and one would expect nothing less from Blowfly; some things don't change all right, and in this case that's a good, freaky, funky sort of thing.