Kxng Crooked capital-punishes capitalists in 'Good vs. Evil'

Good vs. Evil by Kxng Crooked

It must have been the rest he received from his low-key 2015 that gave him such a charge this year because advanced emcee Dominick “Kxng Crooked” Wickliffe is absolutely on fire and therefore on a roll and well he should be. We just don’t want him to put out the fire. Statik Kxngfrom February was of course a juggernaut, and eight months later, we got the tasty sample that is the Valley of the Kxngs EP, which represented lyrically what he’s been cooking up on his own since the dawn of 2016. Even the most well informed, most updated fan however, likely couldn’t see the politically motivated attack he’s hatched on this month’s Good vs. Evil LP (Nov. 11, RBC Records), his third studio album as a solo artist.

The out-of-control alternate reality/dystopian future concept of the album is on a double dose of ‘roids here. Crooked I is pumped full of frustration and anger at the modern day world’s racism, class separation, the disappearance of the middle class, the growing number of those living in poverty and the military police state to the point where he envisions struggling citizens picking up arms and fighting back violently. No one wants to see it sure, but his prediction might not be far off considering the current decrepit conditions and despair of the poor. Crooked I is not shy and doesn’t lie when he blames the wealthiest one percent, the “Puppet Master[s],” whose puppets are the police (robots in his futuristic imagining/foretelling) that brutally “keep order” at the demand of these super rich masters.

Crooked I has every right to be outraged at the extremely corrupt system, and his retaliatory ideas are more than enough to get anyone out of their seat, but even after many many first strikes, violent retribution against the enemy (no matter how sensually gratifying it may seem at the time) will only deliver short term satisfaction at best. Love, morals, values, teaching, learning and a phasing out of both toxic ideologies and destructive institutional thinking are absent from Kxng Crooked’s agenda, which simply makes him just another ruthless ruler in Good vs. Evil. Extremely rebellious and very revolutionary, the album kicks off the war between the rich and poor but also continues the cycle of hate and physical aggression, if only in the mind and on wax. Good vs. Evil is great for going after the establishers of both the media’s propaganda model and the twisted political economy but not in how it does so.

3 out of 5 stars