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The rapper Canibus is widely known because of his ferocious lyrical skills. His intense verbal macabre left many MC trainees in awe, and had many people mimicking his style. His highly anticipated debut album, Can-I-Bus, pensively fell short of expectations. His critics blamed him for not making enough battle oriented songs and having too much unusual tracks such as “Channel Zero”, “I Honor You”, and “Rip Rock”. Canibus seemed to take those damaging words to heed as he prepared for vengeance in ? B.C.” This time ironically, Canibus was blamed for making too many battle tracks, which happened to be the downfall of this album. This left the Einstein MC in a state of confusion, and he nearly lost his mind and the reverence of others in putting out one of the biggest jokes of all time, “E! True Hollywood Stories.” Canibus, the battle rapper, is someone who never stops reminding us how incredibly gifted or ill he is. He never stops complaining about how bad commercial rappers are. And he never stops telling you how he can kill you in various numbers of ways. And to add to that, he never has good production with him. In just four sentences, I pretty much summed up what 2000 B.C. sounds like. Most of the time, his lyrics are more on point than a dagger. Albeit it’s rare, there are times too where Canibus sound extremely queer, which is the result of excessive use of castoff lyrics and rhymes. With all of that said, 2000 B.C. still has one of the best intros I have ever heard in a Hip Hop album; a mix of Canibus’ best lines ever from guest appearances (Anyone that grabs the mic after me would get booed/ get everything thrown at you and your crew….Canibus is the type that’ll fight for mics/ Beating you to death, then beat you back to life!...etc), it almost introduces any new comer to who Canibus is and what he is all about. If there is one thing I can say about him, it is his genuine and creative way when it comes to naming album/song titles and forming an attention getter. There are many quotable lines spread out here and there in each song, so anyone who likes to listen to battle MCs ramble on and on would definitely get an orgasmic enjoyment out of this. For those people who like artistic MCs like Common and Talib Kweli would have problems with the production and the repetitiveness of the album. But regardless of what kind of listener you are, you still will get a few kicks out of lines like: If a nigg@ said my tape was wack/ I’ll beat his a$$ and take my tape back/…Canibus is unequivocally, the illest killing machine in the industry/ trapped in a max security building/ suffering from a severe illness called brilliance!!/ One of the tracks on here that actually had me pressing the rewind button is the self titled ? B.C.” This was one of those defining moments where the C-man himself was getting high off of his own lyrical doses, and dropping rhymes filled with more explosives than a nuclear that really takes us back to ? B.C.” Which, also, might explain why that there is a shortage of quality in other areas of the album. There are only a couple of more songs on here where Canibus’ lyrics really put fear in hearts of men. On “Life Liquid”, he and some average cat named Journalist pontificates violently about spilling your vital fluids all over the concrete with the help of JuJu and his production. Rakim comes out of his hiatus on the rampant sounding “I’ll Buss’em, You Punish’em”, unfortunately due to inactivity and lack of lyrical exercise, being outshined by Canibus happened to be the consequence. Canibus saves his best for last as he displays an amazing performance on breath control, delivery, and protract lyricism on ?? Bars”. This was one of the few times that a rapper that actually succeeded in rhyming for a huge amount of time without pausing or stopping due to hooks and choruses. “Mic-Nificent” and “Lost @ C” both feature some of the best production that Canibus has ever gotten in his career. The first one, laced by Danny P, bounces intensely with a furious guitar loop and an orchestra sample. “Lost @ C” is also a fast paced track with gospel samples, this time all the credits go to the producer Chaos. Out of the 15 tracks on here, only the aforementioned ones are really worth listening to, the rest are good, but also falls into the trap of banality. When Canibus first exploded on the scene in 1997, we can all remember when we first heard him, for time nearly stopped; and our minds had to backtrack and slowly regain consciousness as if it didn’t believe what it had just heard. Sadly, that Canibus was long gone. Sure, there are more than enough moments where he reminded us of the hungry and feral beast that he is, but on 2000 B.C. he has yet proved to us that he is more than just a battle rapper. |
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