CD review: TECH N9NE, K.O.D. (Strange Music)
By Rachel Heisler
Music should evoke feeling … and great music always does. Often, music makes people laugh or cry or desire to express themselves in some way, but rarely does it scare. Fear is a difficult emotion to encapsulate and express through simple musical notes — it’s much easier done through video — where you can see the bad guy chasing the good guy or a victim cowering with terror in his eyes. With K.O.D., TECH N9NE has created a world where dark forebodings are paramount, and chilling, violent images are found at every turn. The darkness is startling. It’s slap-you-in-the-face, knock-you-off-your-chair scary; it’s forceful and it’s unapologetic. Aaron D. Yates isn’t f*cking around.
In the liner notes, rap icon TECH N9NE discusses the album’s blatant darkness: “If I knew it was going to have a hella negative effect on my spirit, I wouldn’t have been so gung-ho to do this album like I was. I hope everybody reading this enjoys this album because I don’t ever wanna do another totally dark album ever again if I can help it. Trust me when I say that negative energy can really consume you and possibly infect everything and everybody around you! Try your best to stay in the light while enjoying my darkness. Don’t let it suck you in!” But suck you in it does.
Songs are fitted into three sections: Anger, Madness and The Hole, and each has its own way of making one wonder who TECH N9NE really is, where he comes up with these chilling, gruesome ideas and if the man behind the music is as disturbed as the one who stands on stage in front of millions of screaming fans.
ANGER
The most important theme running through this album (the battle between God and Devil, the contract between light and dark and the fight to recognize good when surrounded by bad) makes its presence immediately known in opening song “Show Me A God” and the skit “The Warning”: “There’s a demon inside me, can I kill it? / Hell no!”.
MADNESS
The Madness appears to be where the inner battle is lost to the dark side and control replaced by panic and blatant disregard for what is “right”. Whether taken literally or metaphorically, the sexual deviance and violence on “Hunterish” (featuring Irv Da Phenom and Kriss Kaliko), “In the Trunk” and especially “Pinocchiho” send shivers up the spine.
THE HOLE
The Hole slows and takes a deep cleansing breath, stretches the muscles of introspection and questions if what is seen with mere mortal eyes can be believed in the depths of the soul. “Shadows On the Road” contemplates the repercussions of his past aggressions; “Low” why the man is not happy even though he should be when surrounded with success and fame. And just when you think TECH has gotten his madness and emotions under control, “Killing You” rushes back in with the force of a tornado and brings with it a definite sense of mental illness and excuses for one man’s former indiscretions.
Whether a real person or a character invented to hide the true self behind, TECH N9NE must have in some way felt the strangle-hold of misery in order to pen such raw and honest songs. “I’ve seen such pain recently, so many dark things,” TECH said. “I had to take those experiences and make something beautiful out of them. I couldn’t let myself fall into that hole with no chance of getting out.” K.O.D. may be shockingly gloomy, excessively dark and deeply disturbing, but it is also a beautifully honest look at the psyche of a tortured soul.
