It’s hard to keep up with Serengeti. He’s dropped three or four projects this year to little or no promotion — all good to great — all proving that our most interesting artists are usually the most eccentric. I’ve said before that he’s the rap game, Andy Kauffman. No amount of Jerry Lawler or UFC back-breaking slams will change that. C.A.B. is a collection of old tracks that boast a surprising amount of cohesion. Odd Nosdam sent it to me early to see if I would write something short about it. I did below. I don’t have much else to add other than you should listen to it, but that’s implied and depends on where your mind is at. Maybe you’re lucky if you don’t get Serengeti’s music. This is black humor, grim darkness, staring at the void with less answers than you had when you were young.
“C.A.B. is pretend, except for the most bruising parts. Those are real. So are the red-eyed full-moon emotions. So are most of the stories, except for the part when Serengeti pulls a shotgun out in a beautiful home to blow his brains out. That is false. This is what is known. Between 2009 and 2011, Serengeti came to Berkeley to record with Jel and Odd Nosdam, at the latter’s Berkeley cottage studio called Burnco.
These are among the first songs that the trio ever recorded, meeting for the first time, just doings raps. The four sessions yielded enough material for three albums: C.A.R., the Kenny Dennis EP, and finally, C.A.B. These are not leftovers. These are songs about love: wanting love, needing love. They are bluesy howls, dim-lit poems, disintegrating memories, permanent slumps, rank smells, brief encounters, wine-drunk distortions, collapsing lives, broken contracts, 80s pop culture flashbacks, fitful nights of sleep. Love songs, y’know.
Jel and Odd Nosdam produced it. Jel did the cuts, Nosdam did the mixing. Doseone raps once. Matthewdavid did the mastering. Serengeti did the heavy damage. Hop in.”
