Look, I’m in a hurry. This album is either very important or it’s dead plastic. You need to get it now. Time is short.
I took an instant dislike to Noah Brown the first time I saw him. It was in a low resolution hand-held video loop on a web forum. He was doing some kind of confrontational half pissed something in pub somewhere like Nottingham or London. Pint in hand and looking for a ruck.
Noah didn’t go down. He stuck around. He wasn’t messing about then and he very definitely isn’t messing now. Over a few years I’ve seen more of his stuff, seen him live and heard his material evolving and sharpening up. The only thing I got right in the first place was to react strongly.
With Noah Brown (the vocal, abrasive, braggart, deep down driven to distraction truth merchant comrade-in-harm to musically scintillating Gavin Lawson) a strong reaction is demanded. You get it or you get out. Don’t bother wondering if you might get it later. If you don’t you won’t. He’s ready to be listened to on his own terms. Now.
The techno, the rap, the grime, the hip hop, the sleazy, the visceral, the physically threatening taunts and the plain gorgeous add up to YES BOSS. The Concept isn’t big, it isn’t clever, and it doesn’t want your money. It’s tattooed on Brown’s arm and it sneers: “Think For Yourself, Schmuck”.
The album (CD or sweet vinyl on the can’t-go-wrong “Dance To The Radio” label) opens with EXACTLY the right big snatched string chords with something primeval added in underneath and then a HUGE bass sound that takes the breath away. It’s the 14 second Intro and it makes a pitch to occupy massive surround sound film theatre sonic space. No grimy pub here. The scale keeps coming back through the whole mix, turning what could be bathos or pain into something much more serious and arrresting.
The paralysis engendered by those dreary urban liberal anxieties about whether to disapprove, who to disapprove of and which class/race/sexual authenticity to accept unconditionally are sliced right through. Just decide. Take a stand, know your own mind, Take responsibility and do what you need to do. Simple.
“I’ve got something to say to you today” he announces in “NYB” – as if we hadn’t noticed. He preaches, cajoles, boasts, humiliates by turns. But he does it with a super-sharp wit and his own natural voice. The best rhymes are pearls. (“jabbering” and “cab a ring”). The jokes and put-downs are deadly. (too many to quote, and it would spoil your fun anyway) At the centre of the album “Indie Kids” lacerates the fringed-and-foppish “You're havin’ a laugh, you’ll never get signed. Get a job. Put it out your mind” and “I ain’t a protest singer, but I gotta protest what I’m hearin’ sucks”. And the killer last line “… you don’t need to be in a band. There’s plenty of good jobs out there you can get. Work in hotel. Service industry. Think for yourself! … Schmuck”
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There’s a lot too about physical confidence, personal violence and sexual aggression, drug use and commitment to personal goals. The most extreme statement comes in “They Think It’s All Over”, with extra vocals by Rich Rampant. At one level it’s a cheap taunt of a dozy football fan slumped in front o the TV match while his wife is getting something going upstairs with YES BOSS. At every other level it screams “Are you serious about this life you haven’t chosen? … Is this all you want it to be? Do you want to be a spectator in everything? No?” – well “Concentrate on your own thing” As he grooves in “See It Through”. Make your own choices.
Think for yourself.
And a big special hooray to Gavin Lawson. His beats, tunes and samples are prodigious, subtle, surprising. The musical setting is a real pleasure. If Noah’s thing wasn’t bang on, this record would still be worth playing just for the tracks. The variety and scale of what the Gavron does makes the songs unassailable, even when Noah’s lip goes out onto the edge of what bad taste normally allows. And listen out for sweet cameos from Witty and Nasty and from Tom of ¡Forward, Russia!
But I said it before, time is short. Just go and get it. Especially get it if you “hate” hip hop and didn’t “get” Mike Skinner either. Don’t just hug that hoodie – stand up tall and look him straight in the eye. Let YES BOSS drag your preconceptions from one end of the room to the other and leave you with no option but to think … for yourself.
www.myspace.com/yesboss1
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