[RATING: 5] Hankering after lo-fi martial-arts-referencing beats and deceptively simple lyrics that whisper through your defences like a shadow warrior’s blade? Look no further because Lone Ninja is back with new LP Trapdoors & Secret Passageways. Lone who? Indeed. The Brooklyn-based rapper is so underground he probably doesn’t know his own true identity. Now into a career that’s quite a few albums deep (including those under his Lone Ninja moniker and those with June Marx as Twin Perils) he’s acquired a (somewhat fanatical) underground following. Which might have something to do with the fact that he’s a man dedicated to a single concept. Name, album titles and covers, lyrical content, samples, record label – it’s all about the shinobi of feudal Japan. But hang on a minute – isn’t this ninja obsession a bit solipsistic and limiting? How many times can you rap about secret missions and shuriken? How many times can films like Shogun Assassin be tapped for samples – especially when RZA and crew got their first? The second one’s easy – you don’t bother with edited mish-mash Shogun Assassin – you make your source the full six Lone Wolf ronin movies!
Frankly, anyone who thinks the ninja motif is limiting clearly hasn’t grasped its potential as a universal metaphor. Feeling threatened by and isolated from those around you as does the narrator of Apparition? Well – the life of a covert assassin is also a lonely one. Want to assassinate your useless boss (one interpretation of Ulterior Motives) and all their sycophantic cronies? You’re like a lone ninja! In fact, feel that the planet is being run by corrupt idiots who need to be disappeared (a message easily read into Warpath)? You are a lone fucking ninja! See? Frankly, I find it strangely comforting to be enveloped once more in tales of betrayal, limbs amputated by sword blade and crusty old martial arts movie samples – it’s been a while since Depth Charge and the Wu did much along those lines. Finally, let’s not forget to mention the beatmaker himself – 5 Element Ninja – a.k.a. Lord Beatjitzu who ensures there’s folded carbon steel in those beats throughout. Epic. Don’t sleep. Or at least not without one hand on your sword…
(Out now on Holographic Pagoda)
One Response
This album is FIRE. Really really dope. Complete cohesion and proof of concept from beginning to end. Cop!