Aesop Rock
Musically, his new EP, Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives (Definitive Jux), isn’t an atypical release–its surrealistic backdrops and spastic beats are solid, if familiar–but a limited edition of the disc includes an 88-page book, The Living Human Curiosity Sideshow, which for the first time publishes the lyrics to every Aesop Rock song. (Clearly his fans are eager to figure him out–the run of 25,000 copies sold out more than a week before its February 22 release date.) The book takes pains to present the MC as authorial: it’s lavishly designed and printed on thick stock, and lyrics are styled in paragraphs as pieces of prose, while albums are broken out as chapters. When you have a chance to linger on Aesop Rock’s quirky syntax and esoteric pronouncements–to take the words in at your own pace instead of his–he comes off as much less elusive. In fact, he can be remarkably lucid and charmingly confessional.
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That brief bit of storytelling also suggests the nonconformist tone that Aesop has cultivated his entire career. “I did not invent the wheel I was the crooked spoke adjacent,” is the key line on “Daylight,” from Labor Days, but nonconformity, to him, means rejecting fatalism. A line later in that song tackles the phrase “life’s a bitch,” and his retort has become one of his best-known lyrics: “Life’s not a bitch. Life is a beautiful woman. You only called her a bitch cuz she wouldn’t let you get that pussy. Maybe she didn’t feel y’all shared any similar interests, or maybe you’re just an asshole who couldn’t sweet-talk the princess.” In this case, though, the metaphor is powerful when he raps it, but comes off forced and diminished on the page–it’s meant to be asserted, not read.
