With their sophomore album, On Top of Our Game, the southern-bred rap group Dem Franchize Boyz has achieved the seemingly impossible task of making Kevin Federline sound like a rap genius.
On paper, Dem Boyz are portrayed as the quintessential hip-hop gathering — their names are Jizzal Man, Parlae, Pimpin and Buddie; they wrap bowling ball-sized medallions around their swollen necks and they're, shockingly, not contributing members of the WASP community.
But on their newest release, the Atlanta-based quartet produces a sound more reminiscent of migraine-inducing pain than hip-hop bliss. The entire record reflects a seemingly endless road trip to torture, causing guaranteed carsickness and forcing the upheaval of vomit, hallucinations and thoughts of suicide.
Dem Boyz are missing two vital characteristics needed to achieve at least one positive Amazon review: talent and charisma. The genuinely good artists have both traits, the successful artists have one or the other — Dem Boyz have neither.
To give them some credit, though, Dem Boyz don't consider themselves playas in the game of rap and associate themselves instead with the southern-crunk sub-genre of hip-hop. Even more than that, they're a self-claimed "laid-back" version of southern-crunk. Laid-back southern-crunk? Dual hyphens make any phrase sound verbose, but just listen to the track "White Tee" from Dem Boyz' first album and laid-back southern-crunk will gain some definition. "White Tee" spawned a nationwide dance movement and was the main contributor to the snap music craze. Even more impressively, the song's success gave the group permission to record a much-hyped sophomore album, awarding them a chance to prove to the skeptics that what they offer is more than just a sound that fills BET's empty time slots, but instead has the depth to induce a worldwide phenomenon.
But Tuesday's disappointing release of Our Game erases any preconceived hopeful notions of success. The repetitive and bombastic sound heard endlessly throughout the album is more nauseating than the sight of K-Fed in a wife beater. It's near impossible to differentiate any of the album's 12 tracks, as each song carries an identical drag.
And if their sound wasn't annoying enough, the group had to pull even more hair by misspelling their entire name. Replacing s's with z's is acceptable. Psych wards are filled with patients not fully recovered from the torment suffered during elementary school because of that darn "s" and its consequent speech impediment. But Dem? What are they, German? Sure, the capitalized "The" in a group's name makes any band come off as pompous, but replacing the The with Dem just makes Dem Franchize Boyz look Incompetent with a capital "I".
Dem Boyz open the album with "My Music," a track so obnoxious it makes fingernails on a chalkboard sound pleasant. No, it isn't a crypted download, that ear-shattering, wrist-cutting pulse powering the track is actually supposed to be there. And the succeeding track "I Think They Like Me" offers no relieve as it literally does nothing but vigorously repeats "Yup Yup Yup" over an otherwise endurable beat.
"I Think They Like Me," the first single off the album, is the most tolerable offering on the record, but fails to live up to its title as there's nothing to like about its overproduction and whiny tone.
Despite what Grandma might preach, rap, or good rap at least, is more just than uneducated men mumbling fast-paced smack against bitches and hoes. It actually carries a beat and is comprised of chiseled production. Rap, at its purest form, is art. But at its most barbaric and tainted form rap is Dem Franchize Boyz.
Their biggest issue is clumsily layering too many incompatible synthesized sounds and instruments without providing significant vocals for support. Although the pulsating background makes it impossible to comprehend the lyrics does not make it acceptable to generate a record completely devoid of anything profound. Just when hip-hop was getting cleaner and deeper, Dem Boyz release an album lyrically soaked with racial and sexual slurs not suitable for reiteration.
Despite their name, Dem Franchize Boyz have yet to sell-out and are surprisingly disobedient to the Man, or dem Man rather. Dem Man would have convinced at least one of Dem Boyz to go to gym and forgo the oversized T-Shirt. Dem Man would have forced at least one of the tracks on Our Game to possess an infectious hook. But Dem Boyz didn't listen and are as frumpily clad and obnoxiously sounding as ever. That's actually the most refreshing aspect of Our Game — Dem Boyz know who they are and what they like and aren't willing to compromise.
Dem Boyz claim to provide a soundtrack for southern living and it is therefore possible that Wisconsin lies on a latitude too far north of the equator to understand the art behind the southern-crunk style. But it is even more possible that Dem Boyz don't offer any form of art or style and have a better chance of being wiped away by Dem Man than franchizing into an empire.
Rating: 1 out of 5
