Copperpot - "WYLA? (What're You Looking At?)"

Copperpot - WYLA? ft Prince Po (EV Productions 2007)

Copperpot – WYLA? (What're Your Looking At?) / EV Productions

Next in the slew of excellent rap albums that have finally found their way to the Audiversity offices comes from fellow Chicagoan Daniel Kuypers aka hip-hop producer Copperpot. Most interestingly, in context with the other recent rap albums we’ve been covering (especially from the producer point of view), Kuypers seems to be attacking the genre from a completely different angle; he is embracing the past rather than pushing forward with all out aggression. I think it’s safe to say (and as I did say in the Shape of Broad Minds review) that the style of inventive producing Madlib and the late J Dilla perfected in recent years is the go-to sound for most underground hip-hop purveyors. While cats like Jneiro Jarel are out to one-up the current kings by further tweaking the dense arrangements of boom-bap beats over minutely chopped funk, jazz, soul and worldly dance music samples, Kuypers is looking back to the influences of the current style and purveying a sound somewhere between Pete Rock and Madlib, or Premiere and Dilla, Prince Paul and Jarel. He is embracing the longer loops and instead of burying an oddly syncopated beat in a dense fog of swirling samples, he puts them right out front in easily decipherable sequences to let the emcee do what they do best, rhyme. Like his debut, WYLA? (What’re You Looking At?) is a solid album of classic early 90s-inspired rap; so who cares if he is not reinventing the game in the process?

2005’s Chapter Seven introduced Copperpot to the hip-hop industry. Kuypers made it clear from the very beginning that he was interested in just being behind the boards and putting most of his effort into creating deceptively simple beats for emcees to verbally soar over. Of the eighteen tracks of Chapter Seven, only five were instrumentals, and they were dubbed as “interludes.” While the rappers involved weren’t too buzz-worthy at the time, Kuypers did wonders spinning tracks for Diverse (please release another album!), LongShot, Edo.G, Braintax, Profound and Pace Won to name a few. For WYLA?, his reputation has definitely gotten around both as Copperpot and for his EV Productions label/studio, and the names involved are a bit more noticeable. On the mic, we get three cuts from the notorious (and still very able) KRS One, Organized Konfusion’s underrated Prince Po, legendary Juice Crew member Masta Ace and fire-tongued Chicago female emcee Psalm One, along with a couple hold-overs from Chapter Seven, The Streets-meets-Roots Manuva sounding Braintax and the gruff-voiced Edo.G, and a few cats I am not familiar with including Truth Enola, Rodney P, Time Bandits and Valeska Jakobowicz. Behind the scenes, Kuypers was also able to round up a number of notable Chicago musicians to help fill out his sound including guitarist Jeff Parker (Tortoise, Isotope 217, (((Powerhouse Sound)))), percussionist Dan Bitney (Tortoise, Bumps), bassist Matt Lux (Isotope 217, Exploding Star Orchestra), bassist Josh Abrams (The Roots, Town and Country, a million other projects), guitarist Rodney Anderson and cellist Tameka Reed. Kuypers has got friends and his music is that much better for evolving with some of that classic Chicago collaboration.

Like I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the Copperpot sound is not as much redefining the game as embracing the best elements of it, especially that competitive early 90s spirit when rap was concerned about the commercialization of the genre. And Kuypers isn’t concerned with stuffing four obscure samples into one bar as much as crafting a solid, well-rounded beat to riff on. It is definitely a Pete Rock derived sound with a bit more live instrumentation and buoyant flare. The album opens with bang as KRS One spits a youthful spew over a flute-heavy jazz beat calling for hip-hop to come back home. It’s certainly not a new subject (and one that is repeatedly covered on this album), but maybe as relevant now as ever before. KRS later gives two different renditions of “Dem Know,” which definitely has a reggae flare in its original state, but goes all out dancehall for the “Club Mix.” Perhaps the two strongest tracks come from the NYC rappers. Masta Ace, joined by Edo.G, pleads for the return of art in rap over a greatly resounding cello loop and funk guitar chops, while later during the title track Prince Po drops one of his classic rousing rhymes with the help of Lux’s patient step-ladder bass lines. I also dig Psalm One’s dense, fiery rhymes over the stuttering beat and Parker’s teasing electric guitar during “Blow”, and the sultry-voiced Jakobowicz sexing up the instantly recognizable blues sample that Kuypers flips with perfection. And on the more instrumental tip, the collaboration with The Time Bandits, “Clowning Arounding,” is a great middle-ground between Midwest and West coast production approaches.

WYLA?, like Chapter Seven before it, is an extremely solid effort, but will probably go sadly overlooked for the most part because of it’s nostalgic sound and lack of hyped rappers. Personally though, I would take this any day over most of the nonsense being released because you can easily hear it’s coming from a musician who truly respects the genre. I am not about to get on a pedestal or anything (mostly because you can find much more knowledgeable hip-hop heads elsewhere), but the rap game mostly sounds stale these days (emphasis on mostly… and duh). Albums like WYLA? are good reminders of why the genre was so infectious to begin with and the creative potential held within the styles boundaries, even if you are not out to completely deconstruct the rules. Yes, most of the rapping on here is aimed at the dire state of modern hip-hop and plea for returning to the roots, and even if those are stale subjects themselves, it’s definitely warranted. At the very least, we still have rare producers like Copperpot both embracing the past and tweaking it in new, interesting directions.