Bloodmoney & Morbidly-O-Beats

Until the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, children, often the sons and daughters of recent immigrate, toiled endless hours inside the bellies of factories for wages that kept their families, living in tenements, in abject poverty. During the Industrial Revolution, the concept of children working amidst the most dangerous working conditions known to the modern man became, well, acceptable. 

Lawnmower Men, a production collaboration between Portland rapper/producer Bloodmoney (the Syffal contributor formerly known as Ralphie) and Chicago beat maestro Morbidly-O-Beats, is the soundtrack for those children. 

Lawnmower Men, the follow-up to the duo's previous The Art of Self Destruction, takes the listener into the heart of the machine. Inside the mechanism is its home. Transmissions from deep down in the mine is its calling card. Its breaks slap in time like cogs. Its stabby samples pierce ear drums and swirl like coal smoke belching from factory stacks. Its bass the rumble of turbines whirring in rhythm to the thud of another body being scraped off the floor. 

There's a schizophrenic disoriented beauty that sends thoughts spiraling to different dimensions of grime and suffering. This isn't a record for Sunday morning pancakes. This is more a record for headphones and sadness. This is a record that says to the loneliness, "You will not defeat me!" This is a record that will chop off your toes if it gets too close to the tender sinew of your feet.

I realize that these descriptions might not appeal to everyone. But those of you who understand what I'm talking about, those of you who revel in the acidic rain, who boil with unresolved rage, who can't help the hate, can't deny the creeping depression, forever keeping the demons at bay, you will understand. And Lawnmower Men is for you. 

Take for instance the vibrating funk of "After Birth". You can't spin anything positive about that grind. You can't do anything but devour the placenta in blood and gore and smile through bloody teeth. This record is sick. And not sick meaning sick but sick meaning ILL! 

There are two non-instrumental tracks on Lawnmower Men, "Shifting Face" featuring Curly Castro, Zilla Rocca, Uncommon Nasa, and a Mystikal-channeling V8, and the aptly named, "Self-Destruction" featuring Blu and off-kilter Bloodmoney hisself. 

In all fairness, I'm a friend and coconspirator to both of these sick fuckers. Both are honorable men who have indulged and confronted and overcome their sins, men who might should not be here to present us this ugly gorgeousness. But, like the images of toiling babies that helped save them from the guts of the machine beats, they fucking ARE here. And god fucking dammit if I'm not thankful for that because I love them both and Lawnmower Men is a testament to their fully engorged talent.