Yes, Mike Patton has a couple of albums that could be labeled hip-hop.
It apparently took Patton two years to create this collaboration album with the X-ecutioners, a group of hip-hop DJs out of New York who have worked with the likes of Cypress Hill and Linkin Park. As All Music explains, “Patton sends hip-hopping turntable masters the X-Ecutioners a bunch of oddball records, then the X-Ecutioners create ‘sound blocks’ out of the albums and send them back to Patton for final tweaking and song-building.”
The result reeks of turn tables, jazz, old movie clips and not a ton of easy listening. But with Patton, sometimes we must persist regardless.
While I wouldn’t take in the entire album in one long 45-minute listen, it’s fun for these short, tight songs to pop up on my iTunes playlist every now again. Especially in the case of “Roc Raida: Riot Controls Agent/Combat Stress Control,” just so I can hear Eddie Murphy tell me, “I will kick your ass,” over and over again.
Josh Katzowitz - Sports Writer/Author/Editor 