Infinite Livez Bush Meat

In terms of cultural relevance and currency, UK Hip Hop's stock at this moment in time is lower than ever. If you disregard artists such as Mike Skinner (not Hip Hop) and Dizzee Rascal (definitely NOT Hip Hop), the UK Hip Hop scene appears to be curiously bland, humourless, and dominated by a crowd of twenty-something graphic designers that think authenticity is all about how much you spent on your Etnies. This is a stone-cold tragedy of course, as a lot of the music produced is not only culturally relevant but is also infused with a quintessentially English strain of surrealist humour. It's just a shame that nobody buys the records.

Infinite Livez is one such artist. Winner of the 1998 FKO freestyle competition, he can boast collaborations with some of the Hip Hop scene's hottest underground talent (New Flesh, Mike Ladd and The Majesticons), yet few people outside of the secretive coven of UK Hip Hop will have picked up on his unique brand of abstract lyrical humour. Bush Meat, his first full length album, is an ideal introduction to the increasingly surreal world of Infinite Livez, and before we go any delve any deeper let me just warn you: Outkast this most certainly isn't.

To even the most casual of observers, merely scanning through the track titles featured on the album conjure up some bizarre imagery (The Forest Spirit Sings The Bush Meat Song, White Wee Wee to name but two), but if you think the titles are strange, nothing will prepare you for the complete mindfuck that awaits you when you press play. Over some of the most addictive, squelchy Hip Hop beats this side of Roots Manuva, Infinite regales us with tales of men having affairs with apes (Drilla Ape), the benefits that crisps have on your rhyming ability (Worcestershire Sauce), and, most incredibly, how one night he discovered he could lactate (The Adventures Of The Lactating Man).

The Adventures Of The Lactating Man highlights in particular Infinite's out-there brand of lyricism complaining of women "Squeezing on my nipples for that white gravy" and "Queuing up outside my house with a smile and a bowl of Rice Krispies just to get with me/Chewing on my tit like it was made of Wrigleys". Add to this a beat that bounces around like Andre 3000 playing basketball in a bouncy castle, and you have a track that stands up to repeated listening, even if you still can't get your head around the subject matter (I haven't touched a bowl of cereal since).

But perhaps the most telling and most heartening track on this album is the impassioned Claati Brothers, a humorous sideswipe at a culture whereby the privileged choose to live vicariously through the words and actions of, as the art dealer at the beginning of the track says, people from "The ghayto". Could the same also be said of certain sections of the UK Hip Hop fan base? Am I one of those people that I professed to despise at the start of this review? I certainly hope not, but Infinite's point is well made and wholly defensible, given some of the arseholes that seem to infest the scene and seemingly dilute the message many of the artists are trying to put across with their cheap posturing.

In parts rebelliously silly, in most others laugh-out-loud funny (which is no bad thing, despite what some may say to the contrary), Bush Meat by Infinite Livez proves to all of the doubters that whilst UK Hip Hop as a 'scene' may be slightly bland and serious, the music is anything but. A nigh on critical purchase, Infinite Livez and his white gravy await you. Just make sure you don't forget to take your cereal.