Album Review: Eleventh Hour by Del the Funky Homosapien

Hieroglyphics leader Del joins forces with El-P’s Definitive Jux to release the Funky Homosapien’s first LP since 2000’s Both Sides Of The Brain. He still wields that thick, multi-syllabic Oakland drawl flow with force and stays balanced between brilliant and basic – whatever’s needed, depending on the topic. It’s nice to soak in the murky digital pool of disco in the refreshing, ego-killing Bubble Pop, and if the NBA had any balls, its next campaign would use the future super-funk of Slam Dunk.

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It's been eight long years since Oakland rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien has released a solo album. In the meantime, of course, he's managed to keep himself from completely falling off the hip-hop radar with his continued work with his Hiero label, his 3030 collaboration with Dan the Automator, and of course his appearances on the Gorillaz 2001 self-titled smash. The MC has been promising Eleventh Hour since at least 2006, and though it was originally slated to come out on Hiero, Del finally made the move to Brooklyn's Def Jux in order to get a product out on shelves.

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Del is no longer the Funky Homosapien, in more ways than one. Recent exploits into music theory seem to have grounded his eccentricities. Gone is the lysergic astro traveling found on Deltron 3030. Ditto for the the art-of-story-telling Dana Dane-isms like No Need For Alarm’s “Wrong Place.” Their replacement: battle raps from a conscientious-objecting MC who now deadpans, “Reality is undisputed / If you say it ain’t so then you acting stupid.” Opening with dialogue from a Mothership Connection tour in Oaktown (reminiscent of Check Your Head’s cheap trick), “Raw Sewage” has Del laying into a Temper-pedic thump between Mister Cee-style scratching and climaxing horn blasts.

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