Blakroc - Blakroc

It's good. Really, it is. 

At this point, appreciation for post-Rage rap-rock has more or less amounted to a well documented abusive relationship; so much so that even the phrase "rap-rock" has become cringe-inducing - an instant punchline. One could be forgiven, therefore, for recoiling reflexively at the thought of the BlakRoc project - a collaboration between Akron, Ohio's celebrated blues revivalists The Black Keys and a stable of various Wu Tang alumni and purist rap icons - despite its creators' considerable pedigree. But there's nothing much cringe worthy or eye-roll inducing about the eccentric blues hip-hop of BlakRoc, which comes out perfectly listenable and intermittently worth writing home about. 

In the 2002 Rolling Stone review for The Black Keys' debut album, The Big Come Up, Peter Relic observes "There's Wu-Tang Clan-schooled funk in drummer Patrick Carney's fatback beats." I'm not sure if that little tid-bit came from a label-provided press release, but it's a remarkable statement given the existence of this album seven years later. BlakRoc's greatest strength, in fact, is just how much Carney's production and Dan Auerbach's guitar hooks seem predestined to be run through by passionate and unorthodox emcees. Right out of the gate, a resurrected Ol' Dirty Bastard makes a soufflé out of "Coochie"'s grimey drum breaks and reverberating guitar licks, with a crunk-again Ludacris doing back-up for good measure. Next up, Mos Def is perfectly at home on the spiraling piano groove of "On the Vista," which could have easily been a B-side to his own recent adventure The Ecstatic. And Raekwon sticks to the contours of "Stay Off the Fuckin' Flowers" so well, you'd think the Keys members were just acting out a dream he once had.

The occasions when BlakRoc does begin to buckle under the strain of its many far-flung co-conspirators, come when rappers like Pharaohe Monch and Billy Danze of MOP give in to the beguiling urge to "rock out" that has plagued so many crossover attempts by otherwise sharp emcees. And despite the copious usage of kooky keyboards and organs apparently gleaned from their 2008 collaboration with Danger Mouse, Attack and Release, Auerbach and Carney just don't have a deep enough bag of tricks to keep this show fresh for 40 minutes.

Nevertheless, BlakRoc succeeds by hewing close to its collaborators' strengths and paring down excess where possible. It mostly avoids the fate of lesser "mash-ups" from dilettantes on both sides by deftly embracing common threads in both blues rock and hip-hop - namely love and loss. And at the end of the day, it's a lot fucking better than John Mayer.