Royal-T's "Weirdo Music for Elitist Aliens" LP [April, 2004]
reviewed by Thomas Quinlan for Exclaim Mag

Although a little raw, Royal-T’s first legit release, Weirdo Music for Elitist Aliens, reveals the most potential of this newest generation of Canadian rappers. Representing for Thunder Bay, ON, Royal-T is at his finest when he’s rocking double-time over funky, up-tempo productions. The best is his hometown ode, “Baron Wasteland In a Bay of Thunder,” which combines a funky bass line and pitch-shifted choral singing with simple, jungle-influenced drums for Arit Harvanko’s sole production contribution on the album. Back it up with the electro-rocking “The Importance of Being Jiggy,” featuring and produced by Fat Chicano, and you’d have a classic twelve-inch.

“Syntactic” and “Chaos” are also good body-movers. The darker beats, like “Turning Left” and “Everything’s OK,” also work well for Royal-T. In fact, except for the occasional mumbles on some of the double-time raps, he’s more than capable rapping over a variety of sounds: sweet soul with hooks and all (“Success”), experimental sound clashes (“Hugh Grant’s Hooker”), and solid street bangers (“Some Now Shit”).

Lyrically, Royal-T covers a lot of ground, speaking candidly about politics, society and himself, as well as taking time to drop some battle raps and abstract rhymes. Most impressive is his rare ability to make it all work on one album. Hopefully this is one muthatrucka capable of accomplishing the feat again in the future. (track listing and purchase information can be found here.)

REVIEWED BY THOMAS QUINLAN
(Article online here.)