Send "Del the Funky Homosapien " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Avclub |
 The pairing of West Coast hip-hop godfather Del The Funky Homosapien and taste-making East Coast label Definitive Jux incited fevered anticipation for Del’s 2008 comeback album Eleventh Hour, his first new release since 2000’s Both Sides Of The Brain. As is so often the case with contemporary hip-hop, fevered anticipation predictably led to glum disappointment when the disc turned out to be a minimalist snoozer that left fans nostalgic for the G-funk beats and goofy good humor of Del’s early albums. Del die-hards should be careful what they wish for. As its title suggests, Golden Era is an overt return to the grooves, attitude, and lyrical obsessions of his first albums.From the first words of “Break The Bank,” Del The Funky Homosapien is on the offensive, in full-on battle rap-attack form. But he isn’t a skinny 18-year-old kid rapping about the frustrations of riding the bus or personal hygiene anymore, and the puerile insults he’s long trafficked in can’t help but seem a little regressive coming from a middle-aged man. True, Golden Era is intentionally regressive in its return to Del’s distant past, but the tracks that deviate from the aggressive battle-rap template register most powerfully, like the reflective, laid-back, nostalgic “One Out Of A Million.” Del takes a trip down memory lane on Golden Era, but it’s never as special or profound the second time around....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| Aside from being one of the longest-running bona fide “underground” rappers and one of the smartest dudes in this rap shit, Del the Funky Homosapien also remains one of hip hop’s great misunderstood comedians. Some people say funny things. Del mixes elevated vocab with crass surrealism and toilet talk like Kool Keith minus the in-your-face schizoid persona. Some people, anything they say is funny. Between his low-key West Coast drawl and his nerdy over-enunciation, DtFS has been the go-to weirdo rapper for Deltron 3030 and Gorillaz because he can turn any phrase into a punchline. Including, on “Double Barrel,” the line “kill yourself if you ain’t feelin’ Del.” It’s hard to imagine a time when Del was on MTV and Elektra, but that time was the early ’90s, when discs as experimental as I Wish My Brother George Was Here and No Need For Alarm could be copped in San Bernardino malls. Unlike his polar-opposite cousin Ice Cube (who, as a credit to the relentless intelligence behind his ever-shifting persona, had the balls to put Del on with his original crew), DtFS has never conceded a thing to the mass marketplace. “Clint Eastwood” may have been the last relevant shit he did. But the lowered stakes hardly diminish Golden Era, the smartest, funniest, most urgent hip hop joint of ’11 by far....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Del the Funky Homosapien's always gone his own way. After all, here's a guy who was set to become a pop star in the early 1990s with the playful proto g-funk of 1991's I Wish My Brother George Was Here. A guy who then purposely abandoned that trajectory in order to burrow deep into the underground with Oakland's Hieroglyphics crew. Who then came back at the peak of indie rap's turn-of-the-millennium popularity with Deltron 3030 and Gorillaz, two of the era's biggest crossover smashes. And who's still here, putting out old-school underground hip-hop albums built on furious rhymes and gorgeous understated beats, like the three collected here on Golden Era, including one new record and two previously Internet-only releases. That doggedness about sticking to old-school ideals might be the most surprising thing about Del. After the success of Gorillaz, he could have easily taken another shot at stardom, or at least had a profitable run doing rock guest spots and Adult Swim projects. This kind of dizzyingly intricate indie rap-- the kind that values density and nimbleness of flow more than Odd Future shock appeal or Lil B's excesses of personality or the big blustery knock-you-on-your-ass hooks of Waka Flocka Flame-- is more of an underground phenomenon than ever before. Del's commitment to wild but technically tight rapping pegs him as a survivor from the days when virtuosity was a virtue. He's sure not interested in crooning his own R&B choruses, even tongue-in-cheek, to help him get anywhere near the radio. That's not to say Del's just a technician pursuing perfection. He's always had one of the most immediately magnetic voices in rap, and it's grown even more commanding as it's deepened with age. Del's got the stentorian blunt-force impact of a guy who cut his teeth on early gangsta, sweetened with the inimitable West Coast drawl, but he's nimble the way indie rappers once were as a rule in order to put this many words across in four minutes or less. He can do bounce-around enthusiasm and a stoner simmer with equal ease. About the only downside is that this much go-hard-or-go-home rhyming can be a little wearying after almost two and a half hours of music. In 10- or 12-track chunks, as these records were individually conceived, it's powerful, funny stuff, all without numbing you out....full text |
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