Serengeti - Family & Friends
Anticon, 2011
While the continuing saga of Kenny Dennis--Chicago rapper David Cohn’s mustachioed, bratwurst, Chicago sports, and Brian Dennehy loving alter-ego--was a fantastic treat in the 2010s, it only represents one side of Serengeti’s exhaustive output this decade. At the top is 2011’s Family & Friends, which highlights Cohn’s significant talents as a rapper and storyteller and pairs them with fantastic production from Why?’s Yoni Wolf and Advance Base’s Owen Ashworth (which is probably why this one so cleanly broke through my indie rock barricades). Though Wolf and Ashworth each handle about half the album each, Family & Friends feels like a three-way collaboration. Three great artists in their own right, putting it all together and creating something spectacular. The high point for me is the Advance Base produced gem “The Whip,” which chronicles a MMA fighter who never quite made it, lives in the southwest with his stepmom, and fantasizes about returning to the Octagon and what his life would be like had he avoided getting knocked out at UFC 3. That one gets me every time, and it’s a highlight on an album that is infinitely listenable.
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