If you pay attention to indie music and haven't heard of Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, well, I'm fuckin' surprised. Not to be rude about it, but get with the program; they are easily the most buzzed as well as controversial hip hop group in the business now, and they've released a slew of albums and mixtapes of varying quality within the past two years. They've released some really killer stuff: Tyler the Creator's Bastard and Earl Sweatshirt's EARL are great rap albums, and then there's this, BlackenedWhite, by the duo of rapper Hodgy Beats and the producer Left Brain under the name Mellowhype, which to me is easily the best thing to have come out of the Odd Future camp yet. Hodgy isn't a great rapper, but he's definitely a good rapper. The real star of the show here is Left Brain, who I would say is the second most talented member of the collective outshined only by Earl Sweatshirt, who is unfortunately missing in action. The beats and productions on BlackenedWhite are incredible, innovative and kind of need to be heard to be believed. In short, it's one of the most fun hip hop albums to come out in a long time.
Mellowhype dropped this album for free on the internet last October. Now that Odd Future have blown up and gotten lots of attention from record labels (as well as having established their own), they're releasing a remastered version on Fat Possum with an alternate cover and a reshuffled tracklist with a few new tracks. It makes perfect sense for the group to give BlackenedWhite a physical release; the album is incredibly good and obviously had potential to be a moneymaker. I'm sad to report that they completely botched the reissue, cutting some of the original version's best songs and tacking on some decent but unnecessary tracks. The tracks that were cut from the original: "Hell featuring Frank Ocean," "Loco," "Stripclub," "Chordaroy featuring Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, the Creator," "Gram," and the bonus track "Based featuring C. Renee." The reason the excellent "Chordaroy" was cut is because the label didn't have the permission to use Earl's vocals, so says the wikipedia article anyway. This is unfortunate but understandable. However, I don't think any of the other exclusions can be excused, because they were/are all excellent, especially "Hell" which has a downright ridiculous beat. The extra tracks "64" and "Igotagun" are good but not really necessary.
I don't see the need for them to have altered BlackenedWhite more than absolutely necessary, though I'm sure they had their reasons. In a perfect world with all circumstances allowing, I think they could have compiled all of the tracks from the original and all of the new tracks as well as the bonus tracks for the reissue and released one fuck of a bloated, delicious 19-track double album rather than a criminally abridged 11-track album. Odd Future are doing enough interesting things right now for me to want to support them by buying their albums, but it's hard for me to get behind the BlackenedWhite reissue, though the original is necessary listening for anyone who wants to learn about these guys, or just wants to hear a really fun hip hop album.
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