Bigger & Blacker
WithBigger & Blacker, Chris Rock teams up with producer Prince Paul once again; the duo snagged a Grammy together for their work on 1997's brashRoll with the New.Biggeris a cutting-edge mishmash of studio skits, live recordings, and crazy musical numbers with guest shots fromOl' Dirty Bastard,Ice Cube,Biz Markie,Gerald Levert, and others. The bulk of the album is road-tested live material (mostly recorded at the Comedy Corner in West Palm Beach, Florida, in May 1999) that ranges from the difference between ghetto and suburban shopping malls to taxes, homophobia, insurance, and women. Sandwiched between the live bits are a send-up ofN.W.A.'s "F**k tha Police" with Ice Cube; a ribald interpretation of "Brown Sugar" with Biz Markie; and "Me and ODB," a hilarious, pimped-out ghetto fairytale set to the funky beat ofAWB's "Pick up the Pieces." Rock's inescapable appeal lies in his delivery--his manic energy teeters on the edge, reined in just enough so that it remains on this side of manic.Bigger & Blackershows that Rock is equally at home whether flexing his standup material in front of a live audience or goofing in the studio.--Spence Abbott