It can be convincingly argued that the group linking L.A.'s hiphop past with its present is Tha Alkaholiks. The past is King T, the rapper whose work in the late '80s bridged the raw beatbox sound of the World Class Wreckin' Cru with the sample-driven sound of NWA (Dr. Dre and Yella were both members of WCWC); and the present is Madlib, the leading member of the Lootpack, the group that established L.A.'s underground scene in the late '90s. In 1992, King T introduced Tha Alkaholiks with "Got It Bad Y'all"; in 1993, Tha Alkaholiks introduced the Lootpack with "Turn the Party Out." Tha Alkaholiks have never been entirely underground or mainstream, but always in the middle, producing some of the purest hiphop in the known universe.
Two rappers (Tash, J-Ro) and a DJ (E-Swift) form Tha Alkaholiks, and the trio's fifth—and according to rumors, final—full-length, Firewater, is set to drop early next month. So far, the group's best effort is undoubtedly 21 & Over (1993), and its weakest is certainly X.O. Experience (2001), which suffered from three full-blown commercial tracks ("Best U Can," for example, was produced by the pop factory the Neptunes).
Musically, Tha Alkaholiks make what hiphop lovers basically describe as "dope beats"—bass-heavy, spare, dusty, with lots of scratching and breakdowns. Like the Pharcyde and Jurassic 5, the structure and feel of their sound is much closer to the East Coast than the West Coast, which since the early '90s has been built on P- and G-Funk. Rap-wise, Tash and J-Ro are what culture critic Kudwo Eshun calls "analog engines." Rhyme after rhyme, Tash and J-Ro compare who they are or the way they rap to something else—"Me and O.E. [Old English] is like Tarzan and cheetahs"; "we are international like the internet"; "some people use the word funky too loosely/but just how many rappers can kick it like Bruce Lee."
The dominant theme of Tha Alkaholiks' raps is, of course, getting drunk, or being drunk, or recovering from being drunk. For Tash and J-Ro, insobriety is a condition that can never exhaust their descriptive powers. "At every single show [Tash] you be laying on the floor/swearing up and down that you're never going to drink no more/But I get toe up from the floor up and never throw up/one little wine cooler and you [Tash] want to beat your ho up/I never call it quits, I don't know my own limit/This alcoholic shit is real not a gimmick," boasts J-Ro on "Only When I'm Drunker."
But what ultimately makes Tha Alkaholiks great, and what was almost lost during the thankfully brief period their name was cut down to Tha Liks, is their sense of play. As a whole, hiphop has forgotten how to have fun, to laugh from the belly, to bug-out and "cold get stupid." The thing that rappers on the top of the charts have in common with rappers on college radio is they take themselves so seriously. "Underground headz" are serious about not going commercial; "commercial niggaz" are serious about making bank. Even if the rapper is in "da club," he doesn't relax his guard and get freaky but is preoccupied with getting rubs from girls, looking fresh "down to the socks," and scoring recognition from "chump motherfuckers." Comedy has been entirely banished from the kingdom of rap—even the Beastie Boys, hiphop's original jesters, have abandoned play for politics.
Where has all the laughter gone? What's left of it can still be found in Tha Alkaholiks, who enjoy the total freedom of cracking up, and making fun of themselves, each other, and the world around them. True, they have moments when things cool down and the mood is in all seriousness, but by the next track the trio is back on the bottle, drinking and saying the most outlandish things: "What do you drink [Tash]?/O.E./What does it make you do?/Go pee...."
What a relief it is to hear a rapper loudly burp in the middle of a track—something Tha Alkaholiks often do because they aren't worried about looking or sounding silly. If hiphop is to survive (which is very unlikely) it must recover what Tha Alkaholiks have—a sense of humor.
charles@thestranger.com
