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Typical Cats

Written by Ben Rubenstein

In contrast to the high-profile hip-hop scenes in cities like New York and Los Angeles, Chicago has typically been a disappointment to the genre. After Common, the list of great MCs that call the Windy City home is fairly short. Even Minneapolis, in recent years, has become more of a hotbed of activity than its much larger Midwest counterpart.

But there is hope for Chicago hip-hop; it just takes some searching to discover the strong talent that resides in the many diverse neighborhoods of the city. For proof, take the Typical Cats, part of the up-and-coming Galapagos 4 collective.

Composed of three MCs, Qwel, Denizen Kane, and Qwazaar, this group formed through their performances on seminal hip-hop station 88.5 WHPK, with each contributing flows and freestyles that not only proved their considerable talents, but also their love for the city of Chicago (though Qwazaar originally comes from New York). Finding their interests were similar, the three teamed up to create a cohesive debut that features catchy production and rhymes that could be categorized as anything from straight battle rap to spoken word poetry (mostly courtesy of Dennis Kim, a.k.a. Denizen Kane, an Asian-American rapper formerly part of the spoken word group I Was Born With Two Tongues). With tracks that display their love of jazz and poetry, the Typical Cats strive not to redefine hip-hop, but simply to use words and beats to make their own unique statement.

The group is steeped in hip-hop tradition, borrowing lines from numerous genre classics and melding them into their own distinctive style. For example, on the superb "Reinventing the Wheel", Qwazaar (in his trademark machine-gun delivery) rhymes, “Yo! back in the days when I was a teenager, before the spiked bats and razor blades laced with hatred”, an admittedly harsher version of Q-Tip's opening lyrics on A Tribe Called Quest's seminal The Low End Theory ("Excursions"). Like Tribe, the Typical Cats do their best to match their rhymes to jazzy production, from piano trills to loping bass lines. This is not jazz-rap, but instead rap with a clear affinity for the rhythms that only jazz can produce.

Many of the Typical Cats rhymes are anything but; most include unexpected references from the intellectual (in “Qweloquiallisms”, Qwel rhymes, “Listen through submission and sadistic cultures/And demons’ guns surround our suns like Copernicus-tic vultures”) to personal experience (Denizen Kane in “What You Thought Hops”: “See I was born with two tongues but no green card/my skin marked by the immigration narratives of my people drifting a-part”). As much as the tracks recall past classics, nothing sounds derivative or forced; each rapper contributes masterfully with his own distinctive style. Each group member has at least one solo track, where he is able to showcase his particular brand of hip-hop. Qwazaar shines on “It Won’t Stop”, a track in which he boasts of his fierce desire to reach heads everywhere. He is accompanied by the strong production typical of this album, with looping bass lines and scratching by DJ Natural. Denizen Kane contributes three solo tracks, the highlight of which is the beautiful poem/song “What You Thought Hops”, the title of which comes from native son Common’s “Orange Pineapple Juice”. Here, Denizen Kane’s love for the power of words stands out, and whereas such beat poetry might seem out of place on another album, the unorthodoxy of the group makes anything possible. A sample lyric: “I want to be a word that wants to be a sweating brick/so drink that through your pointed teeth and critique it/I want to be the strophe that strokes the ear in salty heaves/a spine that bends and works like the dance you shut the door to be/Listen to me, with your hips”. Abstract? Yes. Typical? Not even close.

Qwel, probably the most gifted MC of the group, and certainly the most featured, has three solo tracks: the aforementioned “Qweloquiallisms” (a poetic boast complemented by subtle piano), “Cliché”, a straight battle track, and “The Manhattan Project”, a clearly personal song about the rapper’s love of graffiti and all that it has meant in his life: “I won’t stop painting ‘til the world looks the way it should/I’m on a mission to make heaven look like my neighborhood”.

Even DJ Natural gets a couple of instrumental tracks, but these don’t always work too well. “Natural Causes” gets old even in its short two-minute span,and the jazzy “Too Happy for Qwel” is merely interesting. The MCs bring such force to their verses that any track without them pales in comparison.

The best work on this album comes when the three MCs work together to trade rhymes over beats. One of the best tracks, “Take A Number”, allows each MC to talk about what he knows best, the group's skills. All three submit strong verses in this gem, and no one can accuse the group of being too humble with Qwazaar, Qwel, and Denizen having their way with battle metaphors and boasts.

The final track, “The Thin Red Line”, pays homage to the group’s beginnings at WHPK. It recounts the travels of the three MCs as they make their way to the rap show via the El train. Chicago natives will notice the references to various areas throughout the city, from Lawrence to Sheridan to Hyde Park. The track also serves as a commentary on city life in general, with each rapper talking about how they interact with their surroundings. A fitting end to a phenomenal album, the track solidifies the Typical Cats as fulfillers of Chicago’s hip-hop dreams. It’s been a long time coming.

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