The High & Mighty: Home Field Advantage

Rap has rarely been distinguished by the tact and discretion of its performers, but this past year has seen bad taste become a genre unto itself. The big-name superstar behind much of this tastelessness is Eminem, whose The Slim Shady LP is, among other things, a veritable catalog of offensive one-liners. But he's only the latest in a long line of gleefully offensive rappers including Ras Kass, Kool Keith, and Chino XL. Fitting snugly into this genre, The High & Mighty consists of two underground rhymers who wear their lack of tact on their sleeves, peddling tasteless references to Christopher Reeve and other usual suspects with craft and enthusiasm. Whether they're making like a pair of millennial Portnoys alongside Kool Keith, What! What!, and Bobbito Garcia on the onanism-themed "Hands On Experience Pt. II," or mixing battle raps with sports metaphors on the album-closing "Friendly Game Of Football," the members of The High & Mighty at least tackle novel territory. It would be tempting to peg the duo as an underground version of Eminem, who guests on "The Last Hit," but Home Field Advantage is far less personal and self-deprecating than The Slim Shady LP; that album's anger and hostility at least seemed to be rooted in real anger and depression. The guys behind The High & Mighty, in sharp contrast, are more like verbal schoolyard bullies, tearing MCs apart because it's fun and because they can. This sort of bad-taste rhyming may eventually become a dead end, but the consistently enjoyable Home Field Advantage shows there's plenty of ground left to cover.