Majician

This year marked the 30th anniversary of A Constipated Monkey, the warmly regarded debut of Kurious, a Cuban-Nuyorican rapper from the Upper West Side. A bulletproof album on the merits, it owes its historical significance to a stacked production roster, with early work by the Beatnuts and Dante Ross’ Stimulated Dummies outfit. Kurious had established himself as a freestyle maven in appearances on Stretch and Bobbito, but A Constipated Monkey’s local hits—neighborhood anthems “Uptown Shit” and “Jorge of the Projects”—never caught on beyond the five boroughs. Dissatisfied with his contract at Columbia, Kurious failed to deliver a follow-up.

By 1998 he was working at a tutoring center in the Bronx, his recording career seemingly behind him. Kurious fielded a call from fellow major-label castoff Zev Love X, who was putting finishing touches on a self-produced project credited to a masked alter ego, MF DOOM. An evocative, untitled duet made the final cut of Operation: Doomsday, introducing Kurious to the internet’s nascent community of underground rap fans. Subsequent DOOM collaborations—2003’s “Fastlane,” 2009’s “Supervillainz” and “Benetton”—allowed Kurious glimpses of cult stardom that had eluded him as a headliner.

That’s Rhymesayers’ bet with Majician, a set of unearthed material workshopped by Kurious and DOOM during a series of 2016 reunions. (Born in the UK, DOOM grew up on Long Island but was never granted American citizenship; he was denied re-entry to the U.S. from 2010 until his death in 2020.) Though he’s listed as an executive producer, DOOM doesn’t appear to have actually composed the music—all 15 tracks are credited to New York producer Mono En Stereo—which makes for a rather strange homage. Between Mono’s dreamy samples, engineer Eddie Sancho’s sludgy mixing, and Kurious’ spare, inflected vocals, everyone’s doing his best impression of the late legend. Easter eggs abound, including a vintage Mr. Fantastik verse on “Par for the Course.” Majician is something akin to an officially licensed tribute.

These songs might’ve been compelling enough on their own. On “Eye of Horus,” Mono loops a spare piano and kick drum, centering Kurious’ hard-nosed rhymes and succinct imagery. The spiky guitar, full-bodied horns, and breakneck pace of “Unknown Species” recall past glories, with Kurious’ verses supplying ’90s pragmatism to contrast the ’70s stylings. He’s unafraid to indulge nostalgia, holding forth in extemporaneous bursts and meeting Majician’s upbeat instrumentals with raw, instinctive energy.

The free-associative technique works when the tempos are sprightly and spirits high. A sparkplug in his prime, Kurious’s sensibility bordered on Redman and Grand Puba’s, and “Barry Gibb” and “Separation Anxiety” prove he’s still a consummate shit-talker. But with tracks approaching four minutes and hooks in short supply, there’s a lot of space to fill. Kurious sticks largely to monosyllabic rhyme patterns on “Tis the Season” and “Cow’s Eye,” failing to compensate for the plodding grooves and muted percussion. He approximates DOOM’s rhythmic contours on “Untainted,” right down to the pauses between bars, but his wistfulness curdles into kids-these-days grumbling (“It was drugs and murder then, but MCs was neutral/From the hood reporters, nowadays they shooting you”).

If DOOM’s masterworks are an unfair standard, Majician cribs the format with half the breadth of vision. “Bacalao Opera” and “Majical Journey” are framed like narratives, but in lieu of plots or characters Kurious defaults to scattershot musings and genuine head-scratchers (“Gentrification cool, but it’s fucked up”). As an article of DOOM apocrypha, Majician is a victim of its own expectations, sacrificing the lively humor of Kurious’ best work and falling short of Madvillainy’s loopy brilliance. Kurious is rooted to the asphalt—he doesn’t need to chase ghosts.

Kurious: Majician

$28 at Rough Trade

$24 at Amazon