h, sweet Jesus. A new plateau has finally been reached in the pursuit of the worst rap record ever. Make room for this gem in-between your Sheep Doggy Dogg, Party Posse, and White Boy Rapp albums. I haven't been this morbidly fascinated with how gut-wrenchingly bad a rapper could be since I heard Docta Mengle (of internet phenomenon Icy Hot Stuntaz fame) freestyling over a Goodie Mob instrumental. However, Scuba Chicken, a.k.a, Scuba Slim, is of a different nature altogether. Unlike the good doctor, you never get the impression that Slim has deluded himself into thinking he has an ounce of talent, nor that he is foolishly playing out a N.W.A.-induced fantasy often fetishized by sheltered white youth. You see, Scuba is fully aware of his limitations in topic matter, delivery, and production -- he just doesn't seem to care.


Equipped with a bottom-level mic, courtesy of Packard Bell, and a keyboard of equal quality, Scuba is able to pound out track after track of inane sex raps with the occasional, inexplicable backhanded compliments to Jews laced over Fruity Loops worthy drum loops and thin, synthetic strings reserved for MP3.com-bound Mannie Fresh impersonators – not exactly deplorable, but exponentially grating with each subsequent track. Top it off with arrhythmic choruses drenched in vocoder effects and music pauses, and you have the blueprint for the entire album. Check the skill – "I'd nail ya, even if you're covered in snot/I'm still trying to figure out why you love me not/Maybe I'm too old, or maybe you're too young/All I gotta say is 'ching chong chong!'" Sparkle a few leftfield pop culture references like Rose Nylund from the Golden Girls, Go-Bots, and Yoko Ono, and you’re there. Fourteen tracks worth of this, ladies and gentlemen. Let me reiterate – an entire hour’s worth of this for your listening pleasure.


As an encore, the obligatory hidden track is a cover of Jefferson Starship's "Sara." Not to be confused with his "Fuck Da Bitch Remix" earlier in the album, this version liberally uses the Starship version in question, only inserting his own verses that are as inane as the original.


The Neil Hamburger of rap? Nah, there are discernable targets and a methodology behind Neil's brand of anti-humor. Hip-hop's answer to Wesley Willis? Considering the redundancy and lack of coherency, it's apt, but at least Wesley has the excuse of being a paranoid schizophrenic. Barring any unknown mental deficiencies, it only makes this album that more confounding, especially when Scuba has brushes with genuine humor with lines like, “Now it’s time for the gibberish rhyme/Oh yeah the shit is VH-1 bound/blah blah cooter chicken baky-bonk, UNGH.”


The weirdest part of it all is how several prominent figures in underground hip-hop have the same morbid curiosity. Daddy Kev, Celestial records co-founder and frequent Awol One collaborator, mastered the album, while the universally respected Stones Throw label released a 7" culled from his original cassette demo. So, while the average music enthusiast would use this album as the equivalent of a “coffee table” book for a spell, astounding friends with how spectacularly bad it is, only the hardcore oddball record collector/masochist would derive sincere enjoyment out of it. Now that we have that out of the way, excuse me while I listen to this for the hundredth time on repeat.