ORLANDO, FL. (www.onedropmuzik.com) - On Thur. Jan. 13
9 PM
ISWHAT?! and ONE DROP
plays at Will's Pub
1850 N. Mills Ave.
Orlando, FL 32803
Phone: 407.898.5070
ISWHAT?! review from Know The Legde zine
https://www.knowtheledge.net/iswhat_yfio.htm
Writer:
Jessica Ramakrishnan
The challenge of the title tagged across Is What?!'s album cover is only the start of the provocation offered by this trio of hip hop jazzers. Though even before you start figuring out their melange vibe, the question that arises is: who are these dudes? Fronted by MC Napoleon Maddox, Is What?! is completed by Matt Anderson on upright bass and Jack Walker on the sax and flute. They've come straight out of Cincinnati, not known as a hotbed of hip hop, but creativity flourishes in strange places.
The album opens with the appropriately enigmatic ?! Interlude that flings you crash bang into the eclectic trio's style. MC Napoleon human beat boxing is layered over turntable dynamics and African-style chanting, which is reminiscent of the opening of Wyclef's Year of the Dragon. It's enough to enchant as the sonic feast moves on to Parachutes, a lyrical lecture on the subject of misogyny. Or as Napoleon puts it a 'Public service announcement for all my dawgs / Living like dogs / Acting like dogs'. Lyrically, Is What?! are firmly on the backpack shelf. Try this on for size: 'Calling women chickenheads / Telling them to open their legs / Boy you need to open your head / What would you do if your mom never had you?'
When rhyming, Napoleon's flow is easy and his voice seems to wedge naturally between the powerfully aggressive bass, the soaring flute and the truly hypnotic sax of Jack Walker, who has got to be one of the oldest dudes to be in a hip hop band. Napoleon's beatboxing skills, which have won the praise of the beatboxing meister himself, The Roots' Rahzel, work seamlessly with the turntablism and mean drumming courtesy of guest Hamid
Drake on tracks such as Concussion and Can't Get In.
The sound of You Figure it Out defies easy labelling. The trio bear all the signs of hip hop – the MCing, scratch tricks and deft production – but the jazz impulse is everywhere. The most obvious nod to these roots is in their reworking of Charles Mingus's Fables of Faubus, where they update Mingus's civil rights era lament with Napoleon's beat boxing wizardry. Is What?! also breathe their own style into Mingus' seminal Haitian Fight Song on a track called Trust. Such innovation runs through the entire album. Individual musical abilities are showcased and fused differently on each track. Each sound and style is riffed into many different possibilities. In doing so, Is What?! touch the very essence that informs hip hop as a genre.
https://www.onedropmuzik.com Listen here:
https://www.disclogic.com/details.jsp?albumId=5657&itemId=35477&se 
