One would think that people with very little talent wouldn’t be able to make albums that reach across the country, but alas those albums do exist and unfortunately those people do too. Northern State, simply described is three MCs that attempt to seek street credibility, but never make it out of the driveway.
Northern State is the latest attempt of whites taking a stereotypically African-American form of music and totally sucking the essence out of it. Northern State sounds like three white girls that just got out of Bogart’s, using words like “ill” and other stereotypical phrases from the hip-hop world. Their lyrics are full of predictability and corniness. Just imagine three Brittany Spears rapping. This music wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the lyrics-and that is the source of the problem. With lyrics like “been running so long we forgot how to sit / we’re making bass hardcore hip-hop shit / I’m getting dizzy and the sky is floating further away / I put the beat on repeat I got so much to say,” enough has been said. To print anymore would be ridiculous. Even if you did get it for free, the time spent listening to this newest landfill addition could never be gotten back. It’s frustrating to see good music be destroyed by uncreative people. Instead of creating their own style they chose the pop hip-hop form. Unlike groups like Black Eyed Peas and others, Northern State make the format a disgrace to be part of. It’s the Deborah Cox of hip-hop-a fake image with no words to back it up.
Their image is reminiscent of the Beastie Boys of the 1987’s Licensed To Ill-they are the new bad girls of rap and, oh, are they bad. It’s like Hollywood stars playing the blues and singing “oh, my baby left me.” There isn’t any credibility to it. It erodes the music by bringing it down to that, stereotypical phrases that we’ve all heard before. That is what destroys good music. Its been created for the upper class white teenagers that want to find the closest thing to their culture that isn’t enough to totally shock their parents. It’s like in the 1950s teenagers liking Pat Boone instead of Elvis and Little Richard-the more wild forms of that great musical period. This reviewer gives Northern State’s All City a one finger and its up, no joke.
-John Batanchiev
