Case in point: “Hairline Fracture,” Cloudy’s ode to his own receding hairline. It takes a brave MC to tackle this subject, and the fact that October combines self-deprecating one-liners (“Suckas always telling me they’re gonna push my wig back/ Motherfucker Mother Nature just did that”) with a dancehall reggae beat on his new free-download record will only further endear him to his small but loyal local fanbase.
Though Cloudy encourages fans to boo at his live shows, he’s not built on self-hatred. Elsewhere on The Metal Jerk, he’s the president of his own fan club. “Play” and “Live @ Pioneer Square” are packed with creative boasts (though I’m not sure “Style, simple and plain/ I got game/ Check out my emaciated frame” fully qualifies). And on “Name Yourself,” we start to sense the depth of self-awareness behind that sense of humor. “When I was born I was given a Eurocentric name/ When I got a little wiser I decided to change it,” he explains by way of biography. That partially explains Cloudy’s strange fit of a legal name, Kizzy Yokomura, but the lines to come tell us even more about the man behind the moniker. “And with this lust for learning I’m a real go-getter/ And I didn’t need religion or prison to know better.”
Cloudy ends the album in true Woody Allen fashion (The Metal Jerk’s
last words are, “He’s bigger than me. All over. He has a job and
everything”). But between the searing beats—think Shabazz Palaces meets
Dan the Automator—and the fascinating, revealing lyricism here, Cloudy
really has nothing to be ashamed of.
SEE IT: Cloudy October’s The Metal Jerk is out now as a free download at Fieldwerk.com.
