Harder Than It Looks
Black music for white people, just like Screamin' Jay Hawkins says. Rock
'n'
roll is a pretty mixed-up thing, and in these multicultural nineties, it's as
confused as ever. Yeah It's That Easy, G. Love's latest and best,
brings that
confusion right to the surface: He's a light-skinned rapper who substitutes
the archetype of the bluesman for hip-hop culture while maintaining the
beats
and rhymes. Er, well, that's what he used to do. On this new one, he struts
and sounds like a roots rock combo more than ever.
That's not roots rock as in academic, has-been music trying to sound like it
was made 20 years ago. Yeah It's That Easy is full of hipster sway
and modern attitude, but it was done with real instruments and was
recorded to sound
fresh, energetic, and, well, old. Compared with modern R&B, which slaps
computer-tuned vocals over rehashed samples and cranks out hit singles,
the concept of Yeah It's That Easy is exhilarating.
By and large, it works. The songs are catchy. The first single, "Stepping
Stones," is a definite grabber, and the slick and cacophonous "Recipe" is
even better. The drum structures that were so skeletal on his
earlier albums are now much fuller, mostly because the songs are so
much more melodic. Between G. Love's singsong rapping and
guitar playing, Dr. John's keyboards, and the more-than-solid backbeat
provided by Special Sauce (Jim Prescott and Jeffrey Clement), the songs
abound in radio-friendly tunefulness.
The songs are strung together by G. Love's vocals, yet they've got
impressive
breadth. The Philly soul component is now firmly in place and threatens to
overshadow the bluesman of G. Love's first few records. Although
Yeah It's
That Easy is no Backstabbers, it's got plenty of the same full
and mellow overtones -- as on "Willow Tree" and "Take You There" -- to
say nothing of sass. There's still plenty of juke-joint raunch, too; the
harmonica solo on "You Shall See" is as threatening as the lyrics.
If there's a fault to G. Love's latest incarnation, it's the simplistic
worldview that creates a frat-boy vibe. The title track mutters about "social
contracts," race, and identity, but it ends with little more than a
restatement of Rodney King's "Why can't we all just get along?" The
Casanova
smoothness that peppers the love songs is more macho posturing than
libido-charged seduction, and the references to blunts and basketball on
"I-76" -- to say nothing of rhyming "Bob Marley" with "day" -- just seem
childish. The album closer, a sweet and sappy number about old friends, is
just the thing for those lonely nights in the freshman dorm.
OK, save the intellectualizing for the academics -- though Yeah ItÕs That
Easyhas a retro sound, it's roots rock music for right here, right now.