PRISM MEDIA
PRESENTING REALITY IN SLOW MOTION.
There isn’t a harder working rapper alive than Chicago rapper Chris Crack. On his newest album, BATTERY OPERATED SIMPS, which is his shortest since his 2019 tape CRACKHEADS LIVE LONGER THAN VEGANS, Crack tears through 11 excellent soul-sample laden tracks at breakneck pace, per usual. Most 11-song albums would clock in somewhere between 28-42 minutes, but Crack knows that, like Shakespeare once said, “brevity is the soul of wit” and there’s no need to overstay one’s welcome when you can get everything out in a quick 18 minutes.
Take the intro, “How They Find Dinosaurs But Not Jesus”, for example! It features Crack rapping for a mere 42 seconds but it still manages to feel denser and more tightly wound than most all mainstream rap music. Most rappers need a full three minutes to get out of a song what Crack manages in a brief 40 seconds, which makes for a remarkable and usually dizzying listening adventure.
Crack has the vocal dexterity and elasticity in his voice that is so typical with so many classic southern rappers, despite being obviously Chicagoan. When you hear the production, especially on a standout song like “Stop Asking Strangers For Favors”, the simple soul-sample loops will be, for many, reminiscent of the sound Kanye West (the most famous Chicago rapper, for better or worse) popularized in his early records and often is associated with Chicago rap (that, or drill). The production is smart and partners perfectly with Crack’s rubber band-like voice as it snaps back and forth over the beats.
This is Chris Crack’s 14th album since 2019, which is a wild thing to say. Despite his workmanlike productivity, his humor and writing remain forever needle-sharp and the production on his tapes is always comforting and lush, making his music endlessly relisten-able and when an album is only 18 minutes, it becomes legitimately easy to spin it three times in an hour. BATTERY OPERATED SIMPS, Crack’s first album of 2023 (but certainly not his last), excels in all of the ways every Chris Crack album usually does; it is not to be missed.