[rating=3.00]
The duality of the word "party" continues to get smeared like a tube of cheap lipstick as The Coup toss another timely molotov cocktail into this most heightened year in American politics with Sorry to Bother You.
Expanding its line-up to form a fully functional live band and a super diverse guest list that stems from fellow Anti- labelmates Joe Henry and Jolie Holland to Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid to Pittsburgh punkers Anti-Flag to Atlanta rap great Killer Mike to Brooklyn hipster hoppers Das Racist, the Oakland mainstays deliver their most outwardly political record to date with a set of populist booty clap music that blends the groove of Zapp and the bully pulpit of Zappa.
On the surface, tracks like "Strange Arithmetic", "The Gods of Science" and "Land of 7 Billlion Dances" come across as though they could be played alongside Kendrick Lamar and Rick Ross on your local commercial rap radio station. But then Coup poobah Boots Riley comes in like a hyphy Rob Tyner with lyrical gunfire taking aim at the plutocrats, banksters, empty suits and corporate welfare mothers trying to squeeze the collective life out of the working and middle classes.
And then suddenly, this music as it plays in your mind transforms the jubilant atmosphere from getting down on the dance floor with the Cristal flowing to the kind of anti-establishment vitriol you’d expect from Billy Bragg and Jello Biafra, thus taking the group’s idea of "Party Music" to the kind of level of organized frustration that only The Coup can do.
