Fat Ray & Black Milk

The Set Up  

Music House

Rating: 2/4

The thing about all the dudes coming outta Detroit over the last couple of years is that a lot of them flaunt bangin’ Dilla-influenced beats but fall short on the vocals. Black Milk’s solo work has been strong on the production tip, but hardly essential from a lyrical point of view, and this team-up with some random kid with Fat Ray for a handle does nothing to change that assessment. To his credit, Milk delivers some of his hardest tracks yet for The Set-Up (“When It Goes Down” and “Flawless” spring to mind), and both he and the big guy deliver energetic performances…just don’t ask me to quote anything they said, if you know what I mean. Seriously, I can’t recall a single line these guys spit and I have this shit playing as I write this!  Not to imply that everyone has to be super-lyrical to make a good rap album, as a larger-than-life “character” will win over an overly verbose bore any day of the week, but there’s nothing here that qualifies as either. It boils down to a couple of mediocre MCs over some above-average drums. This doesn’t matter on songs like “Lookout,” which sounds like a cross between Defender and early Timbaland and is especially effective after half a bottle of scotch, but elsewhere you’ll be clambering for the skip button.  The usual Motor City suspects drop by (Guilty Simpson, Phat Kat, Elzhi), but they do little to alleviate the monotony. At ten tracks plus an outro, there are only really three tracks that are worthy of your iPod (or Zune if you’re a sadomasochist), which is pretty much the standard  these days but that doesn’t make it right, does it?