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Record Drop: Wordburglar - Rapplicable Skills (Crowd Fund Pressing)

Growing up, I was pretty heavily into the local hip-hop scene, but outside a song here and there... not much stuck with me. The exception to that? Wordburglar. He was the perfect combination of top-notch beats, creative cuts, unique & fun lyrics with a simple but unique delivery.

When getting into collecting vinyl, it was a must that I had all of my "all time" albums. I'm getting there, but I've found in some cases that albums were never pressed. A big one on that list was Wordburglar's album "Burglaritis". Being a follow of his social media, I did see that he was doing a crowd fund campaign to press up "Rapplicable Skills", an album that I didn't hold in as high regard as "Burglaritis" but one that was worth having. I pledged immediately. I think it was November when the crowd fund took place, then the record was received in May. Not the worst turn around, I've been in crowd funds that took much longer.

Track Listing:

  1. Lyrilogical Guy (Skit)
  2. Word The Frig Up
  3. Boombaparang
  4. Sentenced To Phrase
  5. Bill Mosienko (21 Seconds)
  6. Word Currency
  7. Walkmen (Featuring Ghettosocks)
  8. Je Ne Care Pas
  9. Narc Hi-Score (In Nintendo Power)
  10. Noggin Users (Featuring MC Frontalot)
  11. The Other Shop
  12. Spectre Inspectors (Featuring Timbuktu)
  13. Warp Formula (Featuring Chokeules, Mega Ran, More Or Les, Savilion, Sy-Fi, Timbuktu & Ultra Magnus) 
  14. The Whole Spit And Caboodle
  15. Channel Halifax

Review/Comments:

7/10

This is an excellent album. Even the song I would consider to be the "low point" (The Other Shop) is decent, and it's a great example of story telling through hip-hop. Normally in these reviews I'd yammer on about the album, but with Wordburglar I'm instead going to list a few of my favourite one-liners. 

  1. "So I don't give a hoot... like dead owls" (Boombaparang)
  2. "You couldn't win 50/50 if you were the charity" (Word Currency)
  3. "Making heads spin more than breakers on ephedrine" (Word The Frig Up)
  4. "I'm the president's choice... like chips at Loblaws" (Boombaparang)
  5. "I'll put you out of work like actors in Saskatchewan... after Corner Gas was gone" (Word Currency)

All in, my favourite songs are Word Currency, Boombaparang, Warp Formula, Word The Frig Up and Channel Halifax.

My general stance on most of my favourites is that I love the bars, flow, beats and cuts. Channel Halifax, however, is a whole different vibe. It's a really fun call out to living in Halifax - the verses littered with references to local culture and locations around the city. I'm not even from Halifax, but I've spent the better part of 2 decades in the area - I loved this track. 

All around, if I was getting someone to check out Wordburglar this wouldn't be my first choice to show them. It would 100% be the second choice, though. 

Word the frig up!

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