Smashproof - The Weekend

Smashproof. Photo / Supplied

Rating: * * *

Smashproof's Brother is one of those rare songs that doubles as a pop anthem and a true blue hip-hop classic. That catchy tune by the South Auckland trio, made up of Young Sid (the street smart one), Tyree (the smooth operator), and Deach (the suave one), and featuring the nasally delights of singer Gin Wigmore, is still riding high on top of the singles charts after more than 10 weeks.

But a hit single does not a hit album make. And even though it's one of the poppier hip-hop albums of recent times one doubts Smashproof's debut, The Weekend, will have the all-encompassing appeal of Brother. Still, the hard nuts from South Auckland give it a good crack.

The idea behind the album is simple: in the intro Smashproof clock out of work and it's Friday ("I'm about to get some liquor, meet up with all the soldiers,") and off they swagger on a debauched, staunch, and sometimes soulful and soul-searching trip through the weekend. There's the aftermath of Friday night in The Morning After ("The paddy wagon showed up/I guess that's what happens when I start fighting with the cops."), a visit to My Crib (where there's lots of, er, vanilla yoghurt and a girl with a bottom like Beyonce), and even a flick through the Sunday paper.

There are times when The Weekend is slick, powerful and thumping, like it's living up to their self-proclamations that they're coming straight out of South Auckland to take over the world. And they do sound all-conquering with Breathe In, Breathe Out's stealth flow and steely mantra and on the neck-snapping and rump-rattling All Night Long - like Destiny's Child meets the Roots. However, elsewhere, like the loping, one-dimensional tedium of Hot Boy, it's monotonous and laboured, and even though I Could Take You There has a feel-good factor, the rhymes lack refinement.

Then there's eight-minute last track Ordinary Life which starts out brilliantly as a hypnotic hip-hop life lesson but gives way to a condescending spoken word lecture in the form of "Take a good hard look at yourself". The kids are likely to say, "Yeah, whatever. Stuff you." It's a shame because that song and the album as a whole were doing a fine job of social commentary without spoiling it by spelling it out.

Scott Kara