JMprint, Mperfect

Austin hip-hopper JMprint rapped on and produced his album, Mperfect, which is solidly in the alt-rap tradition. The samples run the range of styles, from hard-edged rock to jazzy funk to simple electronic noises, and his beats have potential — some of them are pretty creative, and his flow isn’t bad. But they still don’t save this record. The biggest problem is his rhymes — they’re just lame. On the more aggressive songs, the energy helps you ignore them, but on the rest, they’re hard to forget (and not in the good way).

The few decent songs here are saved by interesting beats. The energetic rapping on “Get Up” is set to a solid droning beat which matches the rapping nicely (especially if you can ignore the lyrics), and the energy carries the song. “Mind’s Eye” features a stark, tense beat with a pounding keyboard and rock guitar that complement each other, and the Arabic-sounding keyboard sample heightens the tension. “Every Story Ever Told” features a pretty fingerstyle guitar sample that matches the song perfectly — it’s a shoutout to all the records that don’t get played anymore and the record collectors that give them new life. Do we got record nerds in the house? Put your hands in the air!

But again, the biggest problem he has is with the rhymes. They’re pedantic and tedious, like this phrase from “Get Up”: “And yeah, we’re free to believe that we’re free / And this purely symbolic freedom will remain unredeemed / Until we do what is deemed to clean house.” You have to give him credit for trying to say something other than some gangsta clichés, but good ideas still need good rhymes to work, and that isn’t one. “Get Into My Car” is a contrived satire of consumerism and big-box shopping, while his rap with guest MC Sleep is supposed to be annoying in a funny way, but the satire is too broad and too obvious to be funny, so it just ends up annoying.

JMprint’s got some talent with the beats, but the rhymes and the rapping overwhelm most of the songs. I guess somebody needs to tell J that not everybody’s cut out to be Kanye West.