Whitman Speck - Dead Or Alive

Hear The Track Here

(Ed: If sexual content and/or mass profanity offend you, read no further. The following is disgusting even to me)

Considering the amount of hiphop reviews I churn through over the space of a year, surprisingly little of it manages to stick to my hard drive. This, mind, is one of my favourite genres so surely I should have more in the way of Must Have's? Well, its probably more my fault that the hiphop artists who submit work to me. See because it is a special genre for me I tend to be very hard on critiquing it; a track has to be a bit more than special for me to want to take it home with me. One of the tracks that DID go home with me last years was the excellent Suburban Hell (September 2008) from Whitman Speck of which I wrote ' judging by this track, Whitman Speck is just asking to have his whole collection hoovered up for future reference'

And here we are with another :)

Whitman Speck is - by any definition - a hardcore rapper; his lyrics are biting, often extremely violent and peppered with cusswords which is why almost every one of his tracks comes with a Parental Advisory label. Hardcore, from Whitman's point of view, really means that nothing - and I mean N-OT-H-I-N-G - is left out, so if extreme sexual references and profanity from the opening word makes you nervous then you are a f****** wuss and should read no further. While I am NOT a fan of the current misogynistic worldview towards women, there are times when I can see it's appeal. See, the one thing that this rapper taught me with Suburban Hell is that he knows EXACTLY what he is doing. A more extreme, but certainly as fluid and musically interesting, version of Rap Soul Brother #1 - Eminem. A completely unfair reference though because Whitman Speck is from the UK and has a different delivery and slant.

I'm a grown up, I don't need anyone to tell me that some areas of rap are well, dodgy. Whitman doesn't care because Dead Or Alive is a 'funny song about necrophilia'. Actually its about having sex with every woman he could lay his hands on, regardless of her mortal state. Yep, the testosterone is flowing, and the images are startling and often LOL funny. If this track didn't have some musical validity believe me I'd be shredding this into itty bitty little strips. The musical side of the track is solid, immaculate, wall to wall, get-up-and-dance perfection that is so commercial it shits money. Ahhh, but there again I don't think a chorus that goes 'I'll **** your mother, your sister, your daughter, your neice, I **** your grandmothers corpse once it caught a disease, I'll *** your cousin, your auntie, your wife, I'll *** any bitch whether she is dead or alive' is going to be passable for teen consumption any time soon. Oh. btw, I ******* LOVE this.

MUST HAVE rap (Strong though, very, very strong)