lorida hip hop producer Vakseen has a hard time thinking outside the box. Take, for instance, the name of his flagship project, The Shaw Shanks.


Case in point, the following definitions:

Shaw, n. The leaves and tops of vegetables, as of potatoes, turnips, etc.

Shank has over 15 different possible definitions, ranging from “The part of a tobacco pipe between the bowl and stem,” to “To hit (a golf ball) with the heel of the club, causing the ball to veer in the wrong direction.”

Needless to say, the attention paid to the intent of naming a group whose debut album reads “Wordplay” is lacking, and since the band’s name obviously references the inspirational Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins film, The Shawshank Redemption—about two kindred souls and their posse of prison inmates challenging the oppressive system—The Shaw Shanks have taken the most kitschy way of appropriating the title.

I suggest Shawshank.

Regardless, Vakseen has some production skill. He’s listened to either Madlib doing the Blue Note catalogue or everything from Tribe at least as many times as most of us heard “In Da Club” three years ago, and he’s got quite an ear for fine orchestration.

“Wordplay Intro” makes a tepid sample from Zeppelin’s “No Quarter” sound homely, and the funky, trebly production on guitar and bass samples throughout the album are pleasant enough in their own rights. The problem is a lack of synthesis between disparate elements. The drums, vocals and samples always seem to be kept at arm’s length from each other, instead of being fused into virtuosic, homogeneous sonics.

Above the beats, MC’s Jaxx and I. Virus unload catchy vocal hooks on “I Luv It (hip hop),” “No Feelings,” and the otherwise inane “Monomania.” They spit with enthusiasm and vigor, often calling to mind the childish gregariousness of Lil’ Jon. Therein lies another problem. The Shaw Shanks don’t seem to know whether they’re going for an experimental underground aesthetic—evidenced in stand out “Off Glass!!” with its classical string lead, faux Animal Collective vocal sample, and distorted chromatic riff—or the fat beats of commercial top 30 hip hop like much of the middle 40% of the album.

That’s where this unusual skill comes in handy. The ability to fuse glistening production with unbridled experimentalism is one not many handle suitably—cite Mos Def’s “New Danger,” the driving impetus of which is succeeded on in “Time 2 Shine” with a bending metal riff over chimes, keyboards, and lecture samples, followed by finally referencing their namesake in lyric. Instead of building smaller challenging sonic structures against one another to bring them into complementary contrast, though, most of the songs on the albums ride off of the momentum from a single loop or sample, ignoring any chance of structural complexity.

The album suffers from a loaded first half of tight, relatively innovative tracks, while the last half of the sixteen track album could do without roughly two thirds of filler, mostly concentrated on bravado-laden rhymes and angst-ridden screams. Yes, the condition of black America is one of severe oppression. No, it won’t be fixed by perpetuating negative stereotypes in hip hop.

Taking a page out of another great hip hop act, The Roots, album closer “Now Dayz” has a lyrical track of spoken word from two guests, and ironically it features the best prose of the album. David Pugh jives “Now days/black actors supposed to play roles of honey mackers/but that’s only after black women make sure the massa’s kids are looked after” and “Now days/we gotta stop them from sendin’ soldiers to die for the great white lie/and stop perpetuatin’ and prostitutin’ jesus as the great white hope/that’s gonna lead black people to the great white heaven with the great white god/that’s leadin’ black folk up like the great white shark/and relyin’ on gin to keep us in the dark,” over a grooving drum beat. Lizz Straight lays out the conspiratorial intent in American politics, lightening the mood with the line “Bullshit sells nowadays and Bernie Mac ain’t that fuckin’ funny,” but the rest of her outline of suppression from North to South is positively as inspirational as anything Morgan Freeman could relay on film.

It’s too bad, though, because with half the songs, and twice the attention paid to lyrical direction, “Wordplay” could have been a gigantic step forward in winning that “same damn struggle and same damn hustle” that The Shaw Shanks keep arguing is the biggest problem in their lives. Unfortunately, it’s the Shanks’ refusal to retreat from their big budget film soundtrack aspirations, and focus on the real problems shown in “Now Dayz” that holds them back. You’ve got to clean up your own house before you can fix your neighbors’, even if you have to do it with a carving stone and a well placed Rita Hayworth poster. Freeman was the only one who admitted he had a “problem” in The Shawshank Redemption. No surprise, then, he was the only character vindicated by the film’s end. The Shaw Shanks need to watch the movie more carefully before they record another “No Feelings” with lines like “Top of the line hoes” if they want to be redeemed as “Hype MC’s.”

That’s not even that far outside the box.