1000 Clowns: Freelance Bubblehead

Quite possibly the whitest rap album this side of Rodney Dangerfield's Rappin' Rodney, Freelance Bubblehead is the brainchild of adorable, curly-haired Caucasian MC Kevi, a rapper who looks like a Full House cast member and raps like he picked up his rhyming skills while hanging out at the mall. Kevi was the rapper on Forest For The Trees' hit single "Dreams," and Freelance Bubblehead was mixed by Beastie Boys producer Mario Caldato Jr., but despite its hip pedigree, the album is surprisingly geeky and unironic. Kevi might drop references to old-school hip hop and pay homage to the lost art of beatboxing, but 1000 Clowns' pop-rap collage seems to owe more to Schoolhouse Rock than Schoolly D. Alternately naively charming and cringe-inducingly cutesy, Freelance Bubblehead is far too adorable for its own good. On the naively charming side is the album's dopey but infuriatingly catchy first single, "(Not The) Greatest Rapper," as well as "Favorite Things," a mellow tribute to, among other things, Tom Waits, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and Dr. Dre; "Kitty Kat Max" is a typically regressive but hypnotic song about Kevi's lost cat. On the cutesy side is just about everything else, particularly "Pug," an infantile track about the overactive bowels of Kevi's dog. Kicking flows about vanilla milkshakes and the way his grandpa smells, Kevi comes off like a weird amalgamation of Beck, MC Skat Kat, and Hello Kitty. It's undeniable that he brings something new to hip hop, but it remains open for debate whether introducing such insufferable preciousness is a good thing.