Day cook, chef, food maverick – whatever you choose to call him – Buffalo-born MC Program is just as skillful in a sound booth slaying beats as he is in the line of culinary fire grilling chicken. His latest solo EP Povinelli follows his December team-up project with studio band Community Titty and nails a gutsy swing that most indie rappers aspire to achieve early on in their careers. And he did it as a one-man stunt; Povinelli is mixed, written, and recorded all by the rap engineer himself.
The MC declares warfare on everybody’s ears; knife fights are like toddler races for the MC, and Program is really looking for the gun show. The MC from the 716 flips tracks into shoots and ladders, funneling us through the noises of an earlier era, like the sweltering summer street sounds of an neighborhood in the Bronx during the 80s. Beats championed in tracks like “K-Gun” and “New Era” remind us why we fell in love with the realism solidifying hip hop as a movement.
Program’s case of cutlery is stocked; a psychodelic drum intro time stamps our journey and the bell trinkets brushing along the bassline of “Bulldog”, featuring MC Conway the Machine, sedates our minds. The beats, in conjunction with the timing of his lyrical slashings, are as sensory melting as a slice of provolone cheese on a hot panini. Program never leaves you hanging and Povinelli needs no instruction. This is classic hip hop at its finest: one sound, unfiltered, and full of bravado. The code is in the message: come prepared. What alternate words of advice would one expect from an artist who proclaims he’s got “the mind of 100 MCs”? I suggest listeners do one of two things — either get with the Program or get off him.
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Post by Jessica Brant
Common “Raw” album commentary