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Future Rhythm

by

Digital Underground

 
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Future Rhythm
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Avg: 4.0 (22 ratings)

  • We Say...

    Best known for their hijacking of the P-Funk mothership and their delirious, Parliament-sampling 1990 hit "The Humpty Dance," Digital Underground took their obsession with George Clinton's cosmic slop to the next logical step on 1996's Future Rhythm — total immersion. Here, Shock G's bouncy beats play second to buttery Funkadelic harmonies, late-Clinton digital trickery, raps right out of Let's Take It To The Stage, five-minute space-organ jams, aliens... and booties, booties, booties! This loose, futuristic concept record is so anally fixated it would make Sir Mix-A-Lot blush — inventing bootycentric reinterpretations of the original funkster's "One Nation Under a Groove" (e.g., "Every booty stink when they poo!"). Future Rhythm, the first album recorded after DU broke with Tommy Boy, revels in the type of industry-be-damned funkateer iconoclasm that has recently made Shock G an unexpected hero of Murs and the Definitive Jux camp. Free your ass... who cares what follows!

  • They Say...

    With each new album, Digital Underground develop and deepen their homage to George Clinton's P-Funk, coming up with new, inventive ways to carry on the tradition. Unlike the G-funk-inspired crews down in Southern California, DU play fast and loose with their inspiration, keeping true to the wild-ass eclecticism of P-Funk's best moments. On Future Rhythm, DU have added a concept of their own -- namely, the record is a concept album about moving funk and hip-hop into the next century. Unfortunately, the music never sounds any different than the group's previous releases, with the notable exception of the exclusion of the good-time party raps that always ranked among the crew's finer moments. So, the concept never quite takes hold, and the music is similar to the group's other recordings, but so what? Digital Underground has found a way to infuse hip-hop with not only the sound but the spirit of George Clinton in a way no other rapper (with the exception of Dr. Dre, who took the sound but ignored the spirit) has ever done. And that means that even their lesser efforts, such as Future Rhythm, have some fine cuts to offer.

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