One Autumn day in 1991 I exited The Music Center — a local record shop known for it’s Hip-Hop selection — carrying Del the Funky Homosapien’s debut I Wish My Brother George Was Here. His first single “Sleeping On My Couch” wasn’t a hit. But I knew he was Ice Cube’s cousin, a member of (and ghostwriter for) the Lench Mob, and that the record was produced by the Boogiemen (DJ Pooh, Bobcat and Rashad) who’d just re-shaped the post-N.W.A. West Coast sound on Cube’s Death Certificate. That sound, built around Funk and Jazz loops, would prove contentious to Del. But I didn’t know that then. And it was about to net him widespread popularity thanks to a single called “Mistadobalina.”
Starting with “Mistadobalina” Del put non-album b-sides on his singles, introducing fans to the sound of his Hieroglyphics crew. And while the first b-side “Burnt” actually featured Heiro crewmembers it was his next single “Dr. Bombay” and it’s eerie b-side “Eye Examination” that gave me an inkling as to how different, dark, dirty, druggy and definitively underground Del and company were capable of sounding. This was before the cello-looping “Catch a Bad One,” a half-dozen Hiero spin-offs, the majors’ abandonment of “underground” Hip-Hop, the Indie-Rap boom, the internet, the self-released tapes, and Hiero Imperium. And yet, Del was setting the stage for what was to be a decade-and-a-half of underground history, even as kids nationwide sang along to his Funk-flavored hits.
It was because of this pedigree, or perhaps in spite of it, that I was surprised to hear, some sixteen years later, that Del was releasing his long-awaited fifth solo LP The Eleventh Hour on Indie-Rap powerhouse Definitive Jux. I wondered what was behind the new alliance. But more-so I wondered “what’s it gonna sound like?” Then I heard a “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”-looping Electro-Funk jam with liquid synth-bass called “Bubblepop” and was strangely comforted. It sounded like I Wish My Brother George Was Here, if El-P were one of the Boogiemen! The first single (”Workin’ It” backed-with “Foot Down”) temporarily severed the “mothership connection” though, simultaneously embracing Def Jux’s “dusty-but-digital” style and the classic 808-based Bay sound.
The remainder of The Eleventh Hour sets out to establish a whole new fresh-for-’08 sound that’s all Del’s and still Def Jux-friendly. But it also feels like a reinterpretation of what “tha Funkee Homosapien” was doing in ‘91. There’s a Funk influence, though less-obvious than that of I Wish…, woven into tracks like “Back in the Chamber,” “Situations,” “I’ll Tell You,” “Str8t Up and Down,” and “I Got You” featuring Ladybug Mecca. “Hold Your Hand” sounds like Shock G (whom message-board rumors once claimed El-P was interested in signing) cooked it up. And “Raw Sewage” even opens with a mothership invocation sampled from a live Parliament/Funkadelic performance!
Del The Funky Homosapien “Hold Your Hand”
This re-acquaintance with his “roots” might be the product of Del learning music theory and using more original sounds & live instruments. Or it could be a manifestation of a stated desire to simplify his musical output. Either way, it’s a veteran artist doing something different by revisiting the familiar.
-El Keter
