Feed From Me

In his gleefully offensive 2002 debut AIDS Can't Stop Me, white boy Wichita rapper Black Nasty transcended the depths of bad taste while simultaneously establishing himself as a promising producer with a solid ear for catchy hooks. With unguardedly graphic lyrics detailing every kind of sex act imaginable, and song titles like "Gimme Your Butt" and "The Tampon Vampire," AIDS Can't Stop Me defied the listener to take the album seriously enough to truly be offended -- unfortunately that's a very fine line to walk, and the same can't be said for Nasty's long-in-development follow-up album Feed from Me. A relentlessly misogynistic "rape-themed maxi single" that opens by detailing the shocking sexual assault of a woman who is forced to literally "feed" from the rapper if she hopes to survive her harrowing ordeal, Feed from Me largely drops the playful tone of Nasty's infectious debut and the result is an album that is so unrelentingly dark, it is often difficult to endure despite the clever song structuring and inventive riffs. It's too bad, too, because when Nasty does occasionally strike the right balance -- as evidenced on the rapid-fire single "HI-V" -- the effect is as compulsively hilarious and repulsively witty as anything on AIDS Can't Stop Me. Feed from Me has been a long time coming, and it's easy to see where Nasty could have gotten tripped up trying to top the amoral excess of AIDS Can't Stop Me. Nevertheless, by producing sister Pink's albums Mold the Gold and Mule School and collaborating with family on the ambitious Kevins album, the "AIDS afflicted hip-hop superstar" has proven himself well capable of branching out beyond his notoriously caustic stage persona. Here's to hoping that Nasty's deeply disturbing fantasies are nothing more than a morbidly creative attempt at riling the listener, and that on his next release he'll focus more on songwriting and less on trying to out-shock himself.