Bon Appetit...*****!

Rap music has been good to bigger dudes. Big Pun, Biggie, Rick Ross, Biz Markie, The Fat Boys & Raekwon – all dudes who stayed in the big and tall section of the Versace outlet due to the success they had rhyming. Now, with Action Bronson’s release of Bon Appetit…..*****!!!!! it looks like there’ll be a new dude at the Coogi sample sale hunting for luxurious XXL sweaters. The quick sell for Action Bronson is that he sounds like Ghostface covering Raekwon with a lil’ Ill Bill thrown in. If that got you immediately excited (and I wouldn’t blame you) don’t even finish reading this review, just go get his mixtape, it’ll make your month. For the unconvinced, Action Bronson really evokes a throwback feeling to mid-nineties era mixtape hip-hop. It’s partially that he brings back the gritty, street level crime centric narratives that NY was known for. But the cherry on top of all of that is that the tape is hosted by J-Love and features a joint from P.F. Cuttin… It doesn’t get any more mid-nineties than that right there. This isn’t that aspirational “holy **** I’m rich!” brand of drug rap Jay & Fabolous produce. Bronson brings back that Nautica jacket and Timbs at the Fulton Street Mall music. The is type of music you rocked while hanging out on the stoop all day, while putting down an order of four wings and pork fried rice from the Chinese food spot – get the 20oz Peach Arizona Iced Tea pairing for a complete hood tasting menu at 5.25 (circa ‘95). Alternatively if you weren’t around for David Dinkins’ New York, this is the type of music you’d imagine that Bishop and Q would be rocking in Juice as they cut school to play Street Fighter I. There’s some certified bangers on this mixtape. “Shiraz” is a laid back flute sample driven beat that feels like it needs some b-boys doing footwork to it. It’s the song most cats come to know Bronson by because of it’s amazing video, it’s also the nicest song on the tape and will inevitably get stuck in your head. “Imported Goods” has the lush string sample that makes you feel like you turned into an episode of Hart to Hart or some other generic 70s detective show. Instead of murder mysteries being solved neatly in an hour with commercials included, Bronson gives us tales of street life and drug deals. “Get Off the P.P” has Action going in hard over a heavy stand up bass beat, on straight **** talking mode. In the middle of bigging himself up he takes time to shoutout Steve Martin and women with “big bodies like an old truck” and “waists sliced thin like the coldcuts.” These are interests I think we can all get on board with. Action has the slightly high pitched, always-on-the-verge-of-being-out-of breath delivery that Ghostface perfected on Pretty Toney but his rhyme construction really brings to mind Raekwon (especially in his obsession with food related metaphors). This isn’t to say dude bites the Wu. Even though dude often talks about street **** (coke, taking a hooker to the Jets Inn, weed, etc, etc.) there’s not the same sense of menace or first person experience that the Wu-Tang vets bring. Instead, Action’s music has a more of a nostalgic feel to it. He’s painting in the style of artist he has a deep appreciation and understanding of. Think of Quentin Tarantino, a great director, yet one who exclusively operates in the style of the movies he grew up with and obsessively deconstructed. From Action’s cultural references (early 90s WWF, David Dinkins, NBA Jam, Patrick Ewing high tops) to his beat selection, this album is a love letter to mid-nineties NY. Bon Appetit…..*****!!!!! is an amazing opening salvo. If Action is only going to get better from here all the other fat rap dudes got something to be worried about. Dudes trying to eat all their prosciutto, and at this rate he’s on his way to do it. Oh, you wonder what’s the big deal if Bronson eats all the proscuitto? Well every one knows you can’t even pretend to fat dude ball if you don’t have some nice prosciutto or Iberico ham. That **** cost like eighty bucks a pound.