Posted on 09/17/2007

 

Chicken N Beer has been done. Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz has been done. Soul food titles are not all that original. Still, when a Hip Hop group chooses such one for their album, it shows that artist is thinking out of the box while not taking themselves too seriously. This describes U-N-I to the tee. The Inglewood duo with their contemplative album Fried Chicken & Watermelon are still not too shy to say, "Kicks rule everything around me" and "Fat girl, come here, are you ticklish?" U-N-I consists of emcees Y-O and Thurzday. They land somewhere in the "above average" category between scientific rappers who kick excessive knowledge and smiley-faced minstrels snapping on primetime. Relying on mostly local producers like Swiff D, Moufahza, and Diabase, UNI excels at the understated of picking beats while keeping a close eye on the piggybank. There are no big name beatsmiths on Fried Chicken and Watermelon, but from "Soul Hop" to "Let Me BE" somehow, almost every beat on the album is bonkers.

As new artists, U-N-I gives you three things that makes listening more enjoyable for first time listeners. One is emcee identification ("Come on, Y-O/Thurzday, couple seconds you're on"). Listening to emcees one hasn't heard can be like a third grade teacher having to make a report card for a class she just met on the first day of school. Secondly, their album runs a concise fourteen tracks, that doesn't lag for the final half hours like many releases do. Finally, ballads like the heavenly strung ode to OPP in "Do With Me," and "Knock on Wood" dedicated to the "my girl's period is late" blues, appeal to both the ladies and the gentlemen.

Though, it doesn't detract from the album quality, none of the songs are about fried chicken or watermelon. Occasionally U-N-I gets airheaded with cuts like "Lap Dance" but who can blame them because those type of songs what's getting down payments on mansions these days. Getting Fried Chicken & Watermelon into the CD changer is the main battle. Once that sideways triangular button is pressed, heads will undoubtingly nod. Ironically this Californian based group sounds a lot like what East Coast underground works should sound like.