Bomfunk MC's
In Stereo

In 2019, right before the Coronavirus pandemic, a video appeared on YouTube that caught the attention of some not-so-young users. We are talking about "Freestyler 2019", a revised and corrected edition of the videoclip that, about two decades ago, contributed to the success of the eponymous track by the Bomfunk MC's.

In the images, we see a teen-ager with blonde dreads who, armed with a smartphone and wireless headphones (the kid from '99 had a rudimentary MP3 player), manages to control the world and those around her, making passersby perform all kinds of oddities (breakdance moves and so on). However, everything comes to an end, and when our friend can no longer command objects and people, she relives her "journey" in reverse and finds herself sitting alone, waiting for the subway. We realize it was a dream.

Apart from the philological operation (all in all successful), the video allows us to step back to that closing chapter of the nineties when the boom of electronic music and new technologies was projecting us with some unease into the Third Millennium. In that context, "Freestyler" was released, a single where the synthesis between drum and bass and hip-hop attitude recaptured an old-school genuineness that seemed lost for a while. The piece's authors were the Bomfunk MC's, a group formed, among others, by London rapper B.O.W and DJ and producer JS16, from Turku, a city in southern Finland.

"Freestyler" achieved great success and climbed the charts worldwide, reaching first place even in Italy. Therefore, there were expectations for the definitive consecration album of the Bomfunk MC's, which, alas, did not happen. Let's try to understand why.

Let's go back to 1999. A few months after "Freestyler", the Nordic band releases In Stereo, their debut album containing twelve tracks and two remixes, totaling fifty-seven minutes of music. In Stereo, at least in intent, reprises the same recipe as the single, meaning a mix of hip-hop, late nineties electronics, and street attitudes (some might say "underground"). Unfortunately, the results are more than disappointing, even disastrous at times.

It is undoubtedly difficult to list the flaws of the Bomfunk MC's debut: let's try. The not-so-excellent sound immediately draws attention, and a good part of the responsibility falls on producer JS16. Instead of diving into drum and bass or breakbeat, he offers us a mix of flashy techno-trance, pounding hip-hop drums, and eighties electro incursions, all seasoned (so to speak) with the questionable scratches of DJ Gizmo and sounds often too edited or filtered, resulting in annoyingly "clean" (try listening to the tracks with headphones at high volume, and you’ll agree with me).

Let's talk about the lyrics, quite a term given Raymond Ebanks' skills on the mic, aka B.O.W.. "Uprockin' floordroppin', spinnin' and glidin'/Windmill combinding, 1999('in)/And on top of it all, the boldest freeze/Now come on party people let me hear you scream!": these verses repeated for four minutes in "Uprocking Beats" summarize Raymond's rhyme tenor. Sure, in 1980 at a Zulu Nation party, they might have been fine, but twenty years later, they sound somewhat repetitive and convey, if not a sensation of cosmic void, at least a chronic lack of topics.

In Stereo soon sinks into the abyss of indecency, a zone sadly close to the derisive raspberries from Eduardo’s memory. Special mention goes to the dreadful "Rock, Rocking Tha Spot", with its horrendous guitar riffs in the "Walk This Way" style, and additionally, a female vocal sample whispering: "Fuck me". No less is the title track, a mishmash of straight basses, screams, and rhymes worthy of a Riviera nightclub vocalist. Thumbs down also for the single "B-Boys & Fly Girls", an embarrassing mix of electric guitars, scratches, and ultra-tacky sounds from a provincial club. Finally, after drawing a (pity) veil over the remix of "Uprocking Beats", we come to "Spoken Word", a puzzling outro with moralistic ambitions that is frankly avoidable after an album not exactly deep from a lyrical point of view.

At this point, a spontaneous question arises: is there anything good in the cauldron of In Stereo? Probably yes. Apart from the already mentioned "Freestyler", we can save "Other Emcee’s" and "Sky’s the Limit (Radio Edit)", two tracks that move in rather pleasant electro territories, "1, 2, 3, 4", another tribute to old school rap boasting a well-crafted production, and, last but not least, "B-Boys & Fly Girls (DJ Gizmo Funky Remix)", a kind of instrumental version that, thank God, steers away from the original’s tacky sound.

Stop. In Stereo ends here, and with it ends the international success of the Bomfunk MC's. The band will release two more albums, practically ignored outside Scandinavia, and then disband after the release of Reverse Psychology, the last chapter of a not-so-brilliant career.

Beyond the missteps in their artistic career, the Bomfunk MC's, with "Freestyler", made us believe that mainstream hip-hop could take a different path, in a period when champagne bottles and big cars seemed to have overshadowed the essence that JS16 and company wanted to revive in their debut. With unfortunately questionable results.

DeReviewer Score: 2.5