Recensione album

In recent years, giving props to Al Pacino's role as a bloodthirsty Cuban cocaine warlord in Scarface has become a rap phenomenon. The film has provided a rapper and a rap label with their names. Now a sample from the movie is the opening sound bite on Represent, the debut album by Fat Joe da Gangsta.

Joe is a gangsta to the marrow. Going well beyond the usual black-power homilies, his heroes may be white, Latin or black – as long as they're mobsters. Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, for example, are as likely to get a nod as Tony Montana. "Now in '93 they should free John Gotti," Joe raps in "Flow Joe," the album's first single.

Hardness and rawness go hand in hand in Joe's world, and the music throughout Represent is accordingly unembellished. The chorus of "Livin' Fat" ("Hey, yo, I'm livin' fat") is shouted over a Spartan drum track. The bass is muddy; long, single notes rumble like torpedoes, as if it were a sign of weakness to indulge listeners in a melody. The splashes of eerie keyboard chord fragments bleed distortion like wounds. But rather than invoking the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and his cronies, from whom these riffs were likely sampled, the keyboard part suggests quick edits from a horror-movie score. Unrelated, each note goes nowhere, like the lives of the people who populate Joe's narratives.

Admittedly, Represent is something of a one-trick pony – musically, most tracks are on automatic pilot from beginning to end. But again, this just bolsters Joe's gangsta stance. Represent is an appropriate soundtrack for a low-rolling papi chulo, a Latin mack on the prowl who can't be bothered with the frills of intricate production. His subject matter is a laundry list of threats, beat downs and ass waxings, but it's style – not content – that makes Joe's Glock-for-a-Glock worldview enticing. "My Man Ski" is a threat from an ex-con friend of the rapper suggesting that if you don't buy the album, Ski will "kill your muthafuckin' family." "Shorty Gotta Fat Ass" is, as its title suggests, an ode to Joe's taste for diminutive women with giant cabooses. Although the song's all-too-familiar objectification of women is a long way from romantic, it's not viciously misogynistic, especially by gangsta standards. The many references to Joe's South Bronx stomping grounds and his "Puerto Rican Power" shout outs lend the album authenticity and freshness. Joe has also managed to assemble an impressive group of talented MCs – including Apache and Kool G. Rap – who add instant credibility. A guest spot by Grand Puba on "Watch the Sound" is one of the album's high points.

"The Shit Is Real," in which Joe sticks up his cousin during a visit to his aunt, is the heart of Represent. "Another Wild Nigger From the Bronx" is an all-star pass-the-mike affair in which Joe and friends take turns kicking freestyle. And, appropriately, the last cut on Represent, a boot-knocking anthem called "I'm a Hit That," features a sample that pops up in the chorus like a ghost of an earlier Bronx bomber: the voice of Slick Rick, a gangsta rapper who's currently serving time. (RS 668)

DIMITRI EHRLICH

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