Aesop Rock

[August 29th, 2007] [UNDERGROUND RAP] “Just don’t use the words ‘metaphorical’ or ‘gritty,’” a friend pleaded when I solicited advice on how to describe Aesop Rock. But it’s easy to understand why those words are so overused when it comes to the New York MC’s resonant voice and haunting, monotone delivery. Overworked adjectives notwithstanding, Rock has lured fans deep underneath the melting, gray face of New York City since premiering in 1997 with his self-financed Music for Earthworms.

His penetrating rhymes—akin to a schizophrenic’s word-salad speech—paint an MC who’s as enamored with syllables as he is rich, metaphorical (there, I said it) imagery. Born Ian Bavitz, Rock speaks to those lost souls wandering dark subway tunnels, dosed up and hyperventilating; he’s a prophetic pied piper who chants about the plight of TV-entranced zombies over beats by such notable producers as EL-P and Blockhead.

On standout albums like 2000’s Float or its follow-up, Labor Days, such production paints an appropriately dark, dense dreamscape behind Rock’s eerie rhymes. But even though he’s articulating tragedies like working-class Americans watching their dreams move out of reach like dangling carrots, Aesop’s songs are far too danceable to come off as pedantic. And it’s that marriage of beats and words that makes many of the MC’s tracks near-apostolic. It begs to be said: Aesop rocks.