Funk as a living creature. Funk almost but, crucially, not quite as she used to be funked. Undie as it might sound if its reverence for Clinton and Collins was translated from its usual retroism and belief in the "genuine" and the "true" into something of-the-moment, definitive of the time in which it is recorded. The Coup have pulled it off.
"Me And Jesus The Pimp In A '79 Granada Last Night" is the centrepiece, of course. An epic that feels much shorter, gorgeous production, lyrics just about anyone else would kill for; it's the best example of The Coup's craft, their symphonic roughness, their elegant deprivation. What's interesting is how many other tracks stand up to it; the string-bass buzz of "20,000 Gun Salute" and "Busterismology", the mournfulness of "Underdogs". There's Del The Funkee Homosapien's contribution, which lifts "The Repo Man Sings For You" from average to memorable. Then there's the piano groove of "Cars and Shoes", which is what would come out if the best aspects of 1975 and 2000 were suddenly fused with each other, a glorious parallel year. Then there's the demented chant of the wickedly Toni Braxton-quoting "Breathing Apparatus", a track whose controlled, concentrated anger and excess is remarkably sustained, combining the elasticity and modernity of Swizz Beats's productions with a more traditional definition of "funk" and "conscious" lyricism (something very few seem capable of doing; all the more reason to praise this).
"U.C.P.A.S." continues in this vein, and what's most noticeable is how lightly it carries its allusion to the horrendously overrated "I Shot The Sheriff". It occurs to me that this is perhaps the best undie album of the year, it seems like the album that Dead Prez's Let's Get Free wanted to be; the album it might well have been had its idealistic later section not got so horrifically sugary, had its quotations not seemed overtly weighed down by history.
So there are a couple of low points; "Sneakin' In" is a throwaway, the squelchy jam of closing track "Fixation" could have been avoided, the chorus of "Piss On Your Grave" repeats itself for too long, and the skits get indulgent. But mostly this is determined, individualistic music, which I don't think could have sounded quite this way at any time before now. This is what happens to 70s funk when all revivalism is drained away, all nostalgia is rejected; it has the character and one-off vision and controlled madness of all Clinton's best records. Unique. Complete.
Robin Carmody, 16th October 2000