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The Cincinnati duo probably knew taking the name Iswhat?! would make people ask lots of questions over their chosen name. And I have to admit that the group remains an enigma in this era of sharply defined boundaries.
A group that changes in shape, orbiting around core musicians (founders / players) MC Napoleon Maddox and saxophonist Jack Walker, Iswhat?! has been around since the mid-1990s. Their first album “You figure it out” (2004) – a sort of a spacio-temporal rendezvous between Charles Mingus and Public Enemy in a graffiti covered Harlem basement in Harlem – intrigued jazz fans aficionados as well as the hip-hop community. Two other disks (“The Life We Chose” in 2006 and “Big Appetite” in 2009) and several prestigious collaborations with (with the likes of) Archie Shepp, Chuck D (Public Enemy), DJ Spooky, Fat Jon (Five Deez) and DJ Spinna make it clear: Iswhat?! disregards categories to cultivate a polyvalent vision of music, a new blend of music beyond boundaries. The duo inherit the traditions of Great Black Music, like their forebears Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Stetsasonic, John Coltrane, The Last Poets, Doug E Fresh, Nina Simone, Gil Scott-Heron and Boogie Down Productions...
For in addition to knowing how to rap, sing, beatbox, and make futuristic beats, Napoleon Maddox is also an incredible story-teller/writer, with a pen as sharp and versatile as a Saul Williams or a Mos Def. His somber stories can also often be interpreted as metaphors for the rap game, or for humanity in its broad sense – where each of us must struggle daily against our base instincts so that brother does not turn on brother. Or to quote a proverb: so that man should be more than a wolf for man.
Yet again, Iswhat?! will raise more questions than answers. But this is what happens when we look ahead rather than back. |
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