It helps to separate the art from the artist sometimes. Not in the R. Kelly sense, either. All our culture wars over problematic art bore the fuck out of me; I mean actually taking the scalpel to the song and decontextualizing it from the name brand behind it. No matter how great the artist, every song remains its own animal. If this was my first time hearing Masta Ace, would it still be legendary? Strip away the decades of context, the underdog narratives, and the ten thousand co-signs and all you’re left with here is a couple of flawless verses over a catchy Marco Polo joint. That’s enough.
This is a cut off the second LP that Ace has done with Mr. Polo, Richmond Hill. The sequel to A Breukelen Story is every bit as impeccable, and it’s hard to imagine things going any other way. These are two true school perfectionists with a lifetime of experience doing it right.
That’s not always a good thing. We’ve all seen Real Hip Hop fundamentalism go wrong. The boring, pedantic bars. The same old breaks getting looped to death, again. The pantheon of mandatory name checks. Hell, even the dress code tends to be questionable. There’s no air in that tomb and there’s no life in that music.
One evening over whiskey on a Montreal fire escape, one of my rap buddies confided that he couldn’t stand Masta Ace. It was the perfection of it all, he said. Ace cuts lines so clean that my man could only find it boring. Everything was laid out exactly as it should be, sure, but that also means that nothing can jump out and surprise you. While it feels a little weird to judge a diamond merchant for only stocking flawless stones, I do get it. Masta Ace, especially at this stage of his long career, is a predictable man.
“P.P.E.” will sound familiar to longtime fans because it is fundamentally the same song as “Take a Walk,” an equally masterful slab of urban cinema off his classic Disposable Arts. That’s not a criticism, that’s inevitable. It’s also incredible to compare the two tracks, because Masta Ace in 2001 sounds exactly like Masta Ace in 2024. Both of them sound an awful lot like Masta Ace in 1990, riding the high of his triumphant debut LP crammed full of Marley Marl bangers.
It’s a very small fraternity of rappers who never changed because they never had to. There are millions of wack losers who kept it 100 from cradle to grave without ever giving the world a single sixteen worth a shit; they don’t count. Masta Ace stands with giants like Kool G Rap, Grand Daddy I.U. or Lakim Shabazz, mutants from the future who arrived on the scene as a fully-formed force of nature. Ace made his debut on one of the greatest posse cuts in hip hop history and he hasn’t missed a step since 1988. He’s still better than most rappers alive 36 years later.
Talent isn’t everything, though. Masta Ace is also a good, gracious man, plus an absolute professional in all aspects of the music business. Legends seldom age well. Melle Mel has been perpetually pissed off ever since KRS cooked him, KRS-One started a cult & wrote himself into his sad little bible, and Lord Jamar is a cautionary tale straight out of a Chapelle Show skit. It can get real ugly out here.
So “predictable” is fair enough, but “boring” remains a bridge too far for me. Considering how many slicing zingers he’s gotten off over the years, I cannot speak ill of the man whose wry, understated sense of humor shaped multiple generations of top notch MCs. Besides, his style of wordplay only seems boring now because he won the war: in 2024, our entire sense of the artform was shaped in his image, an impact on par with Jay-Z or Slick Rick. There are few higher standards to aspire to. Plus that hook is genius. Five Dickies.
Side note: fans should check out the latest issue of UGSMAG which features a fantastic interview with Masta Ace & Marco Polo about their process & approach to the business.