Consequence

Kanye West's personal style these days may be pure Louis Vuitton, but when he's developing new talent for his G.O.O.D. (Getting Out Our Dreams) imprint, he prefers lunchpails over bling. First he brought us Southside Chicagoan Rhymefest and his unglamorous debut, Blue Collar; now comes Queens, New York's Consequence, the clock puncher behind Don't Quit Your Day Job. Unlike Rhymefest, however, who comes off as truly salt of the earth, Consequence has ridden the inside track—he's cousin to Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, and was a key contributor to that group's 1996 album, Beats, Rhymes and Life. So skits about crappy retail jobs aside, Day Job feels like the work of a savvy, confident veteran, one who slots comfortably into West's smooth, old-school sound.

Assuming you can forgive 'Quence his faux-humble rhymes about taking his girl to Red Lobster and reading the help-wanted ads, Day Job is a slick, entertaining set, punctuated by a terrifically funky club track, "Callin' Me," and lots of soulful, hooky tunes that should please the true-schoolers ("Don't Forget Em," "Pretty Little Sexy Mama"). Consequence's wordplay doesn't dazzle, but his flow goes down smooth, and he holds his own with the more charismatic Kanye on "Grammy Family" and "The Good, the Bad, the Ugly." He is, in fact, a rather workmanlike rapper, and Don't Quit Your Day Job is like a project that meets the bosses' expectations but never quite exceeds them. Then again, these days that's enough to make it better than most hip-hop albums out there.

- Andy Hermann
03.08.07

It is no coincidence that Consequence is signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music. Not only does the latter appear twice on Don't Quit Your Day Job, Kanye also hosted the Queens rapper's mixtape Take 'Em to the Cleaners and invited him to appear on his own album, The College Dropout. All this friendly cooperation is probably helped by the fact that both MCs share a love for clean, mellow, soul-sample-based production, have strikingly similar delivery styles -- often rhyming words with themselves in a voice that's closer to speaking than rapping -- and choose to write about similar topics. But Consequence isn't some neophyte MC who West has taken on as a protégé. He made his debut in 1996 on A Tribe Called Quest's record Beats, Rhymes and Life, and, while his career since then has not been overly active, he has kept a hand in music the entire time. But perhaps because it took him more than a decade since that appearance, Quence chose to approach his first actual solo album from the perspective of a kid just starting out in the game. He begins Don't Quit Your Day Job with a song/skit about being behind on bills and having to put his "pride to the side/Go get a 9 to 5" and ends it with deciding to focus all his time and energy on music instead (having to deal with a nagging mother throughout). The rest of the record moves from tracks about trying to make it big, or at least make it ("Don't Forget Em") to women ("Feel This Way") to general observations on life ("The Good, the Bad, the Ugly"). It's all very relatable; Consequence isn't trying to present himself as anything more than just a regular guy, in the same way Kanye has, and it's apparent. This means that even in songs like "Pretty Little Sexy Mama," where he uses fairy tale imagery throughout ("I make a damsel-in-distress dismantle her dress/And once you meet me past the guards I can handle the rest/I got a plan for the stress in these evil times/So I keep on body armor like it's Medieval Times"), it seems natural and real, the MC's slightly lisped voice ably keeping time and cadence well. In fact, it's in pieces like "Night Night," in which he warns he'll fight if he needs to, that things come across a little forced. It's as if he feels he has to prove his street cred when his talent -- part old-school, part backpacker -- is imposing enough, appealing in its intelligence and uniqueness; he doesn't have to slip into stereotypes to show he's a real rapper, he can let his rhymes speak for themselves. ~ Marisa Brown, All Music Guide