Throwback Thursday-Make Up Your Mind by Kool Keith

by Dan-O

It’s not just that we didn’t anticipate rap music becoming as weird as it is now; the kind of weird where Kid Cudi is normal. A lot of people who love hip hop, grew up on it, are not comfortable with how weird things are out there. To those folks this Throwback Thursday is dedicated. You all lost to Kool Keith.

Throughout most of his career hip hop was wildly uncomfortable with his insane inventiveness but it spawned new genres and new possibilities. Make Up Your Mind is off of the stone cold classic Sex Style album which still sounds like it’s from the future. Keith and his greatest production collaborator Kutmasta Kurt (yeah I said it Dan the Automater fans) went buck nutty doing all sexual content without the LL Cool J I Need Love voice or the sensitive lyrics. This is still hip hop to bang your head and lose your mind alongside.

Keith didn’t care what you thought a sex song should sound like. He didn’t really care how often you thought he should actually make words rhyme. The chorus is insane, the beat is something you turn all the way up in a vehicle whenever you get the chance. Keith is the grand master of disarmingly disturbing comedic imagery; I always lose it when he says “step in the club I throw urine on your mind.”

If you remember all those 90’s hip hop interludes where rappers complained about all those wack rappers doing space age BS and nonsense rhymes I always thought they were talking about Keith. Were they talking about pornocore Keith or Ultramagnetic Keith or Black Elvis Keith one thing is for sure…Keith didn’t care at all. I saw him live and he threw water at us and made up new lyrics for his songs on the spot. His personal conviction to be unique no matter what it cost him or how it landed makes his legacy utterly matchless. Play this song when someone says Andre 3000 was the wildest rapper they ever heard because he wears pants made of feathers. Then tell them this album is a classic and it’s not his weirdest or his best.