Can I Keep This Pen?

Fem-hop trio Northern State's third album posits the question Can I Keep This Pen? The answer, I suppose, is that you can, but you may want to consider throwing it away or at least putting it far, far away in a drawer for the next several years.

That's harsh, I know, but I had been anxiously awaiting this album since before I knew Adam Horowitz was doing some work on production, and that just took my expectations to a new level. I adore Dying In Stereo. All City feels like it makes some concessions to market expectations for the sake of Sony (especially on "Summer Never Ends"), but that shouldn't have been a problem with Can I Keep This Pen? since Columbia dropped Northern State several months ago.

Unfortunately, weak writing and a move away from mad beats towards odd mixes of organs and acoustics meant that this wasn't near the album it could-a, should-a, would-a been. Would it be like this if it was up to you? It wouldn't were it up to me, but it's up to Spero, Sprout and Prynn.

One thing that defines rap is an MC's ability to clown. Previously, Northern State rocked this. For instance, they once claimed "Edmund Hillary couldn't climb this." Telling the man who climed Mt. Everest that he's not as good as you're rap is pretty tight. Now Northern State is relying on "your mom" jokes, which isn't necessarily bad in and of itself, but its bad when all you've got is "I heard your mom drives an ice cream truck." First of all, its hearsay. Second of all, ice cream trucks rule. I love me some ice cream and I love the song the truck plays (which would have made a nice sample around then). I'm supposing this crack is rooted in the fact that ice cream truck drivers probably don't make much, but classism has never sat well with me.

Another problem is the rhyming itself. Northern State has tried to expand their rhyming ability and try to push in some new directions, but its just not working. I'm not saying you can't rhyme "chagrin" with "ottoman," but if all you have to get across with the rhyme is that "MTV much to my chagrin is about as exciting as an ottoman" then its not convincing, especially when you also try to get "diamonds" and "long island" to rhyme as well. I mean, I understand that MTV being as boring as an old-person word for sofa is frustrating, but this sounds about as exciting as Woodrow Wilson trying to start shit with the Ottoman Empire, which is to say less exciting than MTV.

Both of the above examples are from the album's opening song, "Mic Tester," but the album doesn't get better from there. Elsewhere they crack on someone by saying they are "gonna be spinning like [a] rotiseree." I understand the girls are all vegetarians, but I'm sure you can cook an eggplant on a rotiseree and it would taste damn good. That's a compliment, not an insult. Elsewhere, the girls are listing lists of things they hate in rhymes, and come up with this gem (parentheses mine): "Violent Pornography (keep it goin' girl), Police Brutality (that's right), Ethnicity (uhh.... you lost me.)" How does Ethnicity fit? How can they hate it? Even if they want to try playing the colorblind card, they know race and ethnicity are different things; I still remember them celebrating their Italian pride.

One thing that made the first album so pleasurable was that it intelligently snuck in politics among amazing rhymes. On the second album, the songs got a little didactic at times as the focus on politics increased, except for the last track, "Summer Never Ends," where they basically sell out to the Cosmogirl image they were deriding in "Girl For All Seasons." Here they find themselves pushing that further, and becoming materialistic and classist at times.

At one point one of the girls compares herself to Boss Tweed because she's "large and in charge." It would be cool to establish how she was different than Tweed and then claim to be in charge of him. Unfortunately, being like Tweed isn't cool. Tweed was a hardcore party organizer who is responsible for some of the most vicious abuses of labor our country ever experienced. Tweed owned New York back in the days before things like minimum wage and child labor laws.

In "Suckamofo," a song notable for cussing as much as just about any other song I know, the girls attack a "suckamofo" who is looking at them: "It seems you lack employment and I don't exist just for your enjoyment . . . so suckamothafucka get out of my way." I would expect the Northern State I fell in love with to have sympathy for those without jobs, although I don't know why I should expect that out of the new Northern State when I can't even expect logic; the same suckamofo who has no job in the final verse begins the song with a Hummer, which I suppose he must have paid for with welfare money.

When Northern State does try to get political at the end of "Suckamofo" the attempt falls flat: "This is going out to the Democrats. In 2004, y'all came real whack. But now that we got some real candidates, can we please come correct in 2008?" I get what they mean, but there were good candidates in 2004. Howard Dean was doing great for awhile. Also, every year there are several great candidates who simply lack the funds to win the nomination, and 2004 was no exception to that rule. Elsewhere the girls suggest that "while we dropping bombs, why don't you ask your moms." This vague suggestion to try problem of bombings is beyond trying to figure out. What are we supposed to ask them? Do our moms control the bombs?

Despite all these weaknesses, to be fair they are several glimmers of hope.

Some individual lines do remind me of the power of early-Northern State's metaphors, such as "I use the microphone like a judge with a gavel." The idea of using the mic to pass judgement and spread morality is great. In "Mother May I," which unfortunately features a curiously annoying chorus, Hesta lays down one of her best lines on the album: "I like my coffee with lots of gin." I drink coffee with lots of stuff, but drinking it with gin is pretty unique. It is these kind of original details which humanize Northern State and make them endearing.

The song "Iluvitwhenya" reclaims Biggie's "Big Papa" through repetition of the title phrase, feminizing it and making it safe for women. The lack of spacing is postmodern and reminiscent of the opening of Toni Morrison's Bluest Eye. The song ends with one of the girls' boyfriends listening to a playback of one of their songs and saying "baby, play it one more time." This steals any thunder Britney Spears might have left and places it in a feminist context.

The album's peak comes with the penultimate song, "Three Amigas." This western adventure follows in the tradition of the Beastie Boys' "Paul Revere." It opens with a twang-talkin' narrator setting the scene, much like in the Dr. Dre-Eminem "Paul Revere"-inflected joint "Bad Meets Evil" (if you haven't heard it, its on the Wild Wild West soundtrack and may be the best thing they recorded together). The concept alone is enough to sell me on it, but it also features some skillful rhyming. Hold-'em-playin' Hesta claims that "at the poker table y'all could call me Miss Deal," as fine a pun as one could hope for.

Another thing about Northern State that has always thrilled me is how they interpolate obscure Bob Dylan lyrics into their songs. On the first album, "The Man's Dollar" snatched up "I'll drink when I'm dry," featured in both "Moonshiner" and "Standing In the Doorway." In Ignite off of All City, the girls pick up on a rare recitation of the poem "Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie" with "your pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead." On this album, I thought I'd found a Dylan reference, but I was wrong. Still, I found something almost as good: a Marty Robbins reference. Marty Robbins is one of the original country singers, best known for his ballad "El Paso." The girls not only take the location of Rosa's Cantina from there, but they also steal several lines. While running from the man whose woman he lured away, Robbins steals a horse, singing "I picked a good one; it looked like it could run. Up on his back and away I did ride." The girls refigure this as "I picked a good one; it looked like a good one. I hopped on his back and away I did ride." "Could run" transforming into the repetitive "good one" is a problem, but "hopped" is a much better word than "up." The "h" recalls the horse that was stolen while the "p" links it to the verb "picked," the word that substitutes for stealing.

Hopefully these glimmers that Northern State still has the magic can transform into a great album that shows they can still write as well as any mc in the game.